Soul Edge is an empathicArtifact of Doom that constantly searches for more souls to consume to become stronger. In the Bad Future, its host Nightmare assumes his Super ModeNight Terror and proceeds to slay entire cities at a time and become monstrously overpowered. When he has consumed the entire world, it's left a barren, twisted wasteland tainted by Soul Edge's power. Since Nightmare, the Azure Knight, has completely merged with Soul Edge, the energy of Soul Edge now appears Azure.

The immortal Zasalamel became Terumi, the remains of his morality shattered with his sanity when he was forced to continue living with no body to reincarnate into. He doesn't want to die anymore, as his insanity lets him derive great joy from torturing others, so he abandoned the scythe he carried as a reminder of his goal. Note both character's Supernatural Gold Eyes, the fact that Terumi's ghost form's eye is on the same side as Zasalamel's gold eye, their affinity for snakes (and Ouroboros is a symbol for immortality). He slipped into the world of BlazBlue through a hole in the boundary. His presence in BlazBlue becomes stronger the more souls are resonating (aggressively) towards him.

Yukianesa is Soul Calibur. The blade is blue and clearly has a mind of its own. Soul Calibur has demonstrated ice powers when wielded by Siegfried. It's possible that Jin's cold-hearted personality isn't revitalized by Soul Calibur which is why he doesn't gain health, but his resolve and desire for justice/revenge allow him to use the same powers Siegfried manifests. It assumed the form of a katana, Jin's preferred weapon, and drives him to destroy Soul Edge wherever it manifests (including as part of his brother's arm). When Ragna loses the grimoire in the fight with Mu-12, Jin doesn't feel the need to destroy him any more.

Seithr is the corrupting and twisting influence of Soul Edge. Lotte Carmine was probably just close enough to the ultimate Night Terror to not get ripped a new one or completely possessed, but have enough Seithr exposure to degenerate into his current form (similar to Lizardman in Soul Calibur, but more severe because Soul Edge is stronger in the future.) He's obsessed with obtaining the Azure because the power of Soul Edge is addictive.

The Azure Grimoire is Soul Edge. Ragna's copy is also Soul Edge, but it's only a fragment.

Rachel is Slayer's daughter.

It makes sense. They're both vampires who enjoy bugging the crap out of their respective games' lead characters, both have shapeshifting clothes (Rachel's little wings and Slayer's shoulder thing) and both live in a mysterious castle. Plus Rachel's clothes have a cross on them that's extremely similar to the cross Slayer wears, possibly a family crest. Plus her father is mentioned but his name is left a mystery.

Slayer (brown hair) and Sharon (black hair) had a blonde daughter through the magic of anime hair colors. And that's all the explanation that needs.

This is completely possible even in the real world. Since blonde is a recessive gene, two dark-haired parents could conceivably conceive a blonde child.

Then again, Slayer is highly unlikely to be Slayer's real name. He founded an assassin's guild, so it's probably a title or alias.

His bio in Accent Core Plus' Story even reads, "The subject refers to himself as 'Slayer,'" so it would seem that the P.W.A.B. is also under the impression that he's going by an alias. Given that Slayer hails from another world and isn't a native of the GG one, it would make sense that he wouldn't assume his real name.

It's possible that Requiem (that pocket dimension Rachel is able to conjure up) is somehow linked to the world that Slayer's race of vampires/nightwalkers hail from. On top of this, take note of how both Slayer and Rachel's birthplace is listed as "Transylvania." (They also share the same birthday—Halloween—but that's inconsequential.) Granted, even with what little we know about Clavis, it's likely he's not Slayer, but, hey, at least it's something to make note of should ASW ever make a GGxBB.

The divergence was the Black Beast's attack which prevented Gears from being created because it destroyed the research (and maybe Frederick and That Man along with it). In the Guilty Gear universe the time loop was never started (maybe That Man/I-No altered time again) and without the Black Beast devastating the world, Gear development went uninterrupted.

This, of course, opens the way for the crossover fighting game which some of the development team want.

I'm gonna to deviate a little here: It's possible that the Black Beast is a threefold fusion between Ragna, Nu, and Justice (when she was sealed in the original GG game, or perhaps after she got killed off). Or maybe I-No was playing with dimensions again, which resulted in Ragna and Nu going back in time to begin with. It's also possible that I-No is screwing with Rachel, forcing her to relive the timeline every single time it loops for sheer kicks without Rachel knowing.

Even if I-No could mess with the timestream in a way that Rachel wouldn't be privy to it and Takamagahara wouldn't try to intervene (which sounds vastly unlikely), the timelines still don't match up. In Guilty Gear, magic was discovered by humans in 2010, the Gear Project started in 2014, Frederick was converted into the Prototype Gear in 2016, Justice was created in 2073, and subsequently turned on humanity the following year. The Black Beast appeared in 2100, so Gears would be around then (since they were fighting against mankind in the Crusades). If anything, it could be the reverse, in which the Gears and their ravaging of Earth prevented human attempts to contact the Master Unit inside of the Boundary. That, or the creation of the Black Beast was an effort to counteract the threat of the Gears that inadvertently went horribly, horribly wrong.

In most timelines, Bang and Arakune warp to the past through the Cauldron and become two of the Six Heroes.

Hakumen's Arcade Mode ending has a stylized picture of the Six Heroes. Hakumen and Jubei are fairly obvious, but the ones we don't have 100% positive ID on include 1) a man with a giant nail tied to his back and 2) an abstract face curled over what looks almost exactly like one of the bell bugs Arakune summons with his forward Drive. The Law of Conservation of Detail demands it! Plus, it would be funny if Bang was his own mentor (of whom he carries the giant nail as a memento).

I'll take a stab at this, but you guys owe me lots of meat buns if I get it right! Jubei and Nine exist as separate characters. Hakumen is, of course, accounted for. My pick? The guy with the spiked hair is Terumi and the man with the nail-like implement (which I don't see in either picture, but I'll go with the assumption) is one of Tenjo's predecessors, which would make the nail a family heirloom. I'd bet the Alucard estate has a representative there: either Rachel's father or Valkenhayn. You can mix and match those, by the way; wouldn't it be funny if Rachel was somehow distantly related to Bang's "lord"?

My turn at guesswork. Going from left to right, I'll number things. 1.) Unknown. I have no guess. Perhaps Valkenhayn, as it's all I can slot in. Slayer is also possible. 2.) Terumi. Almost 95% on that. 3.) Honestly? I think it's I-No. The appearance is just too damned close. Hat, jacket, corset, stockings, all seemingly a dark color. She's also a dimensional/time-traveler, so if anyone from Guilty Gear is getting in, it's her. 4.) Jubei, due to the heavy armor and two tails. 5.) Hakumen. 6.) Nine, due to the fact that robed characters tend to be spellcasters, and she's the only unaccounted at this point.

I'll try this too. Left to right. 1) I guess this is the supposed nail guy. But to me it looks like a silhouette with a scepter of some sort. No nail. Besides, Hakumen would've recognized Bang's nail and said something. But he was more like you're a new face� 2) I have no idea, but definitely not Terumi. Too muscly and badass! 3) Nine. Come on, how more stereotypical Witch� can you get? Besides she's right next to her romantic interest¦ 4) Jubei, you can tell by the tails. 5) Hakumen 6) This is probably Terumi. He's shady and he's splitting from the band.

As of the Setting Material Collection, we know for sure the identity of five of the Six Heroes. In the middle are obviously Nine, Hakumen, and Jubei. Valkenhayn and Terumi were also in the group, but I'm not sure where they would fall in the picture. That leaves only one mystery figure, and my guess is that it is Rachel's or Carl's dad.

Does anyone else remember when we were told that Bang was one of the Six Heroes (before the American release)? Hakumen did recognize Bang (somewhat), its possible that one of the Six is actually Bang's master (or grand master).

No. Hakumen recognizes Bang somewhat when he was Jin Kisaragi. And I doubt Bang's master is one of the Six if Jin easily beat him.

This has been debunked. Hakumen, Terumi, Nine, Valkenhayn, Jubei, and Trinity have been confirmed as the Six Heroes.

Actually, Terumi and Valkenhayn are labeled wrong in that picture. If you zoom in really close, you can see that the person labeled as Terumi actually has Valkenhayn's pony tail and bow.

The "Old Hag" who raised Ragna and the others was Nine.

At the beginning of Ragna's Story Mode an "Old Hag" is mentioned twice: once when Ragna finds Saya and wonders where the Old Hag is and again when Terumi states he's going to kill her. Now my theory is that she was actually Nine, the witch of the Six Heroes and Kokonoe's mother.

This would explain a couple of things: what happened to Nine, why Jubei trained Ragna and sympathized with him (they both lost someone they loved that day), why Kokonoe hates Terumi so much as well as the animosity she has towards Jubei since he wasn't there to protect her (probably off wandering).

Actually, it's been confirmed that the woman is Nine's sister. It's also revealed that the church they were staying at is used to keep the body of the Black Beast buried.

The Cauldron itself is not what sends the Black Beast back 100 years to form the time loop.

The time shift is caused by the Takamagahara device mentioned in Ragna's ending (and other places). Every time the Black Beast is created, it waits for Kagutsuchi to be destroyed, then somehow pulls the Beast into the Cauldron and triggers the time warp that sends it back to one hundred years ago. Either Jin or this loop's Hakumen gets caught in the warp as well, depending on whether or not Jin made it to the basement this loop.

Jossed. Takamagahara is a device used by Sector Seven to track Terumi.

And that is wrong also.

Taokaka's face is not, in fact, in permanent shadow.

Her face is literally a flat black surface with round, red glowing eyes and a Cheshire Cat Grin. Check out Bang's Story Mode Image 5; one of the Kaka clan kids has her face protruding well out of the hood, where it can't possibly be in shadow, and still looks like Taokaka's "shadowed" face. It's caused by some random flaw in the process of cloning them from Jubei, I'm sure.

In one of the Teach Me, Ms Litchi segments, Rachel asks Taokaka "Are you wearing a mask?" So the Kaka clan might just be wearing masks.

Both are shapeshifting, all-consuming blobs of blackness with the ability to extend massive bony claws and a hankering for the local raw Phlebotinum (seithr in Arakune's case, PSI in the case of the Door), which they are also made of. Plus, the Door is also sentient.

If you take a look at it, there is what appears to be a revolver chamber near the hilt, other than a gunblade, what kind of sword would have such a thing? A sword that possessed a cartridge system is what. All we need now is to see Ragna's Transformation Sequence....

A fully workable theory regarding Ragna's sword, sure, but the Azure Grimoire (copy?) is that red circle on the back of his hand.

OP: Hmm, okay that makes sense. Now for something not entirely different.

And he does get a Transformation Sequence. His right arm transforms into a winged SOMETHING, his entire body goes black, and he sucks the enemy's life out, then runs them through with his sword. His Astral Finish.

Specifically an upgraded duplicate created sometime after StrikerS by a lost clone of Jail. She's based on the original in terms of appearances and genetic abilities (Rumble Detonator + Stinger Knives = Sword Summoner) but her fondness for swordspam has been cranked up to eleven. She was supposed to have been used against the TSAB along with her sisters but something went wrong and she wound up sealed in the Gate after her Nox Nyctores screwed up her programming and made her kill Jail. By extension of course, this also means that Saya was the genetic base for both Cinque and Nu Cinque.

Arakune's physical and mental state are the result of incredibly excessive splicing. He has spliced himself with the Insect Swarm plasmid and Natural Camouflage gene tonic, as well as tonics/plasmids from the Houdini and Spider Splicer library. The red substance he is streaked with is ADAM, and his history with the Kaka Clan shows he is used to attacking little girls for their power. He also wears a white mask, although not as fancy as the ones the splicers wear.

Litchi is also revealed to have taken power from the Boundary in order to bring Arakune back and cure him, but since she's a bit more sensible, she only grabbed herself Incinerate! and Telekinesis plasmids. The former she uses for her All Green Distortion Drive. The latter she uses to move her staff around (which is presumably a Nox Nyctores since everyone and their grandma seems to have one in this game).

So does this mean Hakumen and Nu-13 are a type of Big Daddy and Big Sister respectively?

A horrifying place where one can do insane without sufficient willpower? A place full of truly unimaginable power at the cost of body, mind and/or soul altering mutations (like with Arakune)? Well, doesn't THAT sound familiar? Obviously, whoever came to or was raised on this planet that caused The Boundary to go up made it as a buffer between that planet's reality and the cold crushing unreality that is The Warp.

Arakune is Carl's father.

Think about it; the guy's been missing for the entire storyline. Its possible that turning Carl's sister into a Nox Nyctores caused his transformation into his current state (and he did go insane because of it). IIRC, Litchi did recognize Nirvana (at least Rabbit did).

That... actually makes a whole lot of sense. But what do we make of Nirvana's "resemblance" to Litchi in that case...?

IIRC, and it's been a while since I watched Carl's storyline, Litchi recognizes Nirvana as being a Nox. The way the conversation went, it sounded like there's more than one of the Nirvana model, but Carl's is actually different from the rest (something only Rachel commented upon). In the ending, Litchi's kindness towards Carl is what made her resemble his sister; it wasn't actually her face or anything (well, it may have been, as we have no images of Carl's sister to work off of). I don't recall anyone ever saying that Nirvana resembled Litchi, only that Carl related Litchi's kindness at the end of the storyline to that of his sister's, and was confused because of it.

Which explains perfectly how she got into the intelligence division; with breeding like that she was probably beating the recruitment agents off with a stick for a while.

There is a timeline where the Black Beast never existed

Specifically, the first timeline. Considering that the Black Beast was, in the end, responsible for its own creation in the next timeline, there must have been an original timeline where the Black Beast came from. Of course, the only person who can answer what created the Black Beast of that world is Rachel...

Or possibly Terumi.

Does he know about the time loops? It's a bit unclear.

It is abundantly clear that Terumi has Ripple Effect-Proof Memory and has been fighting a The Plan war with Rachel. By the end it is effectively a draw with Terumi slightly ahead. While Terumi has enough power to fight Rachel 1v1 on even ground, he hesitated to fight Rachel and Ragna (and possibly Noel, or maybe JUST Noel). Rachel has Ragna and Noel by her side, with Tager and Kokonoe backing her up. If some info on the net is right Kokonoe brings Lambda -11- in for their faction as well.

We can't know that yet, since the time loop brings the Black Beast to 2099. 89 years to go...

Jin knew Ragna the Bloodedge was the Black Beast all along.

In the ending which shows him follow Ragna and Nu back in time, he is stated to know what Ragna had become (when he was talking to Rachel). Its possible that being possessed by Terumi granted him the knowledge of the Black Beast, or at least the fact that Ragna was destined to become it (which would also prevent him from knowing that the Library was involved with the Black Beast itself, albeit indirectly). This knowledge drove him insane, and led him to want to kill Ragna even after Terumi dumped his body. Its possible he is in a similar boat as Rachel, if a bit more limited due to amnesia. He's still crazy, but he knew he had to stop the Black Beast somehow.

The only hole in this is that Jin wasn't aware that Ranga was the Bloodedge himself, he merely suspected it based on the name (remember, Ragna's pictures have him with white hair, when he's actually a blond like Jin). Still, he knew that someone named Ragna was going to become the Black Beast.

Continuum Shift suggests that he knew this on a sub-conscious level all along.

Bang is a living Nox.

Self-explanatory. It does give a good reason for his manliness.

Jossed. Nox isn't even activated so he's just manly through his own stupidity.

She's just an actual good person who wants to give everyone a chance. Notice that she shows a similar amount of concern for everyone except Arakune and v-13 (whose presence makes Noel's personality basically go on vacation), and only speaks ill of other characters or fails to give them a chance to stand down when they mistake her for a boy or spend much of the battle mocking her.

Confirmed. In Continuum Shift, Jubei tries to convince her to save Jin, and she can't even think of a reason she should until she remembers how much Tsubaki loved him.

Noel will be the protagonist by the third game.

Ragna holds an imitation Azure Grimore, and with it on he can trash Hakumen (who is admittedly at 20% power, but he fought the Black Beast back in the day); Noel does not know how to fight, she has had her Nox Nictores to do that for her; even her Astral Finish is provided by it. Events will conspire to either strip them from her or she will abandon them (possibly due to her friend below). Rachel, Ragna, Kokonoe, etc. (whoever really) will be busy between the second and third games training her to use the Game-Breaker power of the true Azure. Power that will be demonstrated in a uncontrolled way in Continuum Shift as a desperation move to stave off disaster, likely killing Tsubaki Yayoi in the process, and giving her the determination to get over the inevitable angst about being the Living MacGuffinPerson of Mass Destruction. Terumi will wish it was just the White Devil after him then.

Not quite. CP is largely Ragna's story as usual and the Shocking Swerve at the end sets up Tsubaki and Jin as the likely main players for the next installment. That said, Noel remains the female lead (a status that, at worst, she'd have to share with Tsubaki next game), gets some more confidence under her belt, and convinces Rachel to help her learn how to use her power as the true successor of the Azure, which includes getting Mu-12 to function as her Super Mode.

The "Master Unit Amaterasu" generates the Boundary.

It keeps out whatever drove Arakune mad and warped his body. If Terumi succeeds in destroying it, we're all screwed.

Amaterasu is one of the three Sankishin Units and is used for Manipulating Time. It is within the Boundary (and theorized to confer that power upon individuals) seems to run on an AI (not completely confirmed) and was what was causing the time loops under the directions of Takamagahara.

A bit of 'clarity' on the above, with the benefit of later games: The Boundary is itself what drove Arakune crazy (he couldn't withstand what he experienced/saw). Amaterasu is powered by the first PFD, a bio-android - so, not far off an AI. It (she?) was causing the time loops, but was actually pulling against Takamagahara in doing so. Takamagahara would much rather Amaterasu didn't exist.

Confirmed as of CS. It seems like playing around with the Boundary is akin to playing around with Chaos.

Which one is confirmed? "Purge the tainted" reaction from Hakumen? Because as far as we know, in Litchi's Arcade Ending, Linhua m to Litchi in that case...?

IIRC, and it's been a while since I watched Carl's storyline, Litchi recognizes Nirvana as being a Nox. The way the conversation went, it sounded like there's more than one of the Nirvana model, but Carl's is actually different from the rest (something only Rachel commented upon). In the ending, Litchi's kindness towards Carl is what made her resemble his sister; it wasn't actually her face or anything (well, it may have been, as we have no images of Carl's sister to work off of). I don't recall anyone ever saying that Nirvana resembled Litchi, only that Carl related Litchi's kindness at the end of the storyline to that of his sister's, and was confused because of it.

They entioned that every single townspeople is crazy about her. So I suppose she has her own followers, just not someone who'd dare to marry her (and even then, she might just refuse as she's too busy thinking about "how to cure Arakune").

Litchi being corrupted by the Boundary. Arakune actually speaks in coherent, full sentences to tell her to get cured, fast during his Story Mode in CS. He says this is a "line she can't cross", and tells her to go to Kokonoe while she still can. So yeah, the corruption wins again.

He tasted of dis pear and was broken more severely than Sephiroth. He does not want to eat Bang because inside Bang's head is The Void.

Lao Jiu will consume Litchi one day.

Based on the above WMG, and... look at Litchi's storyline and compare it with... Millia Rage. Both quits their own organization for their own purposes, and possesses an inhuman power (Litchi tapping power to the Boundary, Millia and her Prehensile Hair), this is after another of their colleague tapped into another similar power (Arakune and Zato/Eddie). If anything, Litchi would inherit one massive theory that Millia carried: Millia might get consumed with her hair, which is a similar beast like Eddie (which consumed Zato). Now, what is Litchi's equivalent for Millia's hair? What did she gain from the Boundary? It's Lao Jiu. It would consume her, per Arakune's warning.

Why? Noel might like cute stuffs quite a lot, but to go on hypnotized stance on Lao Jiu? It must've been its power trapping Noel in such stance. Also, Litchi is a doctor, and usually doctors avoid alcohols (and she set a good example on the Orient Town people, so I don't think she's secretly hiding some wines), so why would she be drunk on Noel's story? Because it's another of Lao Jiu's corruption! It makes her drunk and insistent. Alternatively, it amps up her love of cosplaying, the usual Litchi may held herself not to drag anyone for her to put costumes on, but why did she do it on Noel? Because Lao Jiu made her do it.

Supported by Tsubaki's joke ending, though seemingly benign, if manipulative: Tsubaki gets the same cosplay treatment, but halfway through Lao Jiu takes over Litchi's body and holds her hostage to force Tsubaki to clean the room, do the laundry, cook dinner.... Tsubaki is already suspicious of Lao Jiu, though: she knows that pandas are evil creatures with yellow eyes.

Ragna, Jin, and Saya are the descendants of the Sixth Hero.

Assuming the Sixth Hero wasn't related to the Ikaruga Ninjas then this might be the case. It would explain why Terumi chose to use Saya as the template for his god killing weapon. And why he went out of his way to possess and kidnap Jin and cut off Ragna's arm. Terumi might have really hated the Sixth Hero; hence why he gets his kicks ruining the lives of these siblings.

Probably Jossed.

Definitely Jossed with the revelation of all six Heroes's identities, as well as the trio's status as orphans adopted by Celica.

Carl's father Relius Clover is the one who created Terumi's "Hazama" body.

He's been described as a talented alchemist. Creating artificial bodies seems right up his alley.

Not to mention that he created Nu's body, while Terumi created the Murakumo unit (Nu's sword armor/Nox Nyctores). Because of this, it's likely that Relius and Hazama/Terumi are working together in some way.

Seems to be confirmed.

Definitely confirmed... in a way, in the light novel Phase 0.

Arakune is starting to get better.

His dialogue in Continuum Shift contains fully coherent sentences in scenes with both Litchi and Carl, and even with his speech cutting in and out, he seems to be a good bit more lucid than in Calamity Trigger.

And sure, maybe eventually Arakune will be cured. But what they really have to worry about is that middle period where he's completely sentient, but still craves the Azure and the Boundary beyond all else. Can anyone say True Final Boss?

The reason why Bang's Nox never activates

You know what the Nox Nyctores do, mostly, right? Increase the user's emotion/psychosis. Now what is Bang's greatest emotion? Hot-Blooded. Now imagine if his Nox is active. Bang's Hot-Blooded-ism will be so great and the universe will explode, unable to contain the awesomeness that is Bang and his Nox. Terumi was dumb enough to not notice that. Bang and his overloaded Hot-Blooded-ness is the key to destroy gods, not Noel!

No. What happens when Bang's Nox activates is it summons his long-lost Crazy Awesome brother, Jack Rakkan. Here's the scoop: Ken Akamatsu and Daisuke Ishiwatari know each other, or are fans of each other's works (based on one of Akamatsu's past and the resemblance between Rachel and Evangaline, but this is WMG territory in and of itself). Thus, the two created similar characters who are actually related. We know Bang has some past with one of the Six Heroes, be it training or simple admiration (based on one of Hakumen's storylines). We know Jack has helped save the world. What would happen if the two met? Their combined manliness creates an Epic Battle, destroying the world as we know it (but humanity survives). Fast forward several hundred years, and we have the set up for Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, with Kamina being the reincarnation of both Jack and Bang.

It's because Bang doesn't know how to activate it (and didn't even know he had one until recently) and, furthermore, activating would lead to the eradication of all the world's seithr, which, while temporary, would cause society to collapse (which is why the heroes only use it to undermine the Imperator's plans), but honestly, this WMG should be the real reason why.

Master Unit Amaterasu is the board owner, and the Susanooh unit is a position as a moderator. Terumi is a former mod who got all pissy about not being able to do things his way, and thus had his title removed and given to a former Jerkass (Jin) who mended his ways and started enforcing the forum rules properly (Hakumen). The Cauldrons and the Azure Grimoire are Terumi's troll threads. He used to keep pissing off a pair of easily angered forum goers (Ragna and Nu) until they would flip out and force the mod (Hakumen) to lock the thread (kill the Black Beast). He's now trying to piss off the board owner's girlfriend (Noel) until she makes him close the message board for good. He's succeeding.

Interesting. To elaborate:

Bang is a Hot-Blooded otaku who is trying to get Litchi, a somewhat schizophrenic, yet beautiful, poster.

Arakune was an intelligent and friendly board member who fell victim to a virus and spams the board.

Carl is a 14-year-old boy who's trying his hardest to fit in. He uses a Sock Puppet (Nirvana) to agree with him to make him look better.

Rachel is a veteran board member who can be very disdainful of everyone else.

Tager is a member of another board who's trying to bring Hakumen over to gain publicity under the orders of one of the board's owner, Kokonoe.

Jin himself is Hakumen's alternate account, which got hacked at times by Terumi and made him look like a Jerkass, even though his real self has mended his way (would explain about how Jin and Hakumen can be together).

Tsubaki is the girlfriend of the mod who survived the board being taken down and getting reuploaded, but she's always like a Sub-mod for Jin/Hakumen. Unfortunately, when Noel joins the board in the middle of being taken down and uploaded... Noel starts taking Tsubaki's position as Sub-mod while they still act like friends. She entered a trolling topic by Terumi while having a bad day IRL, was eaten by his troll rumors of Noel usurping her position, and now hates Noel

Relius is a seemingly normal poster on a good day, with Sock Puppet skills better than Carl (he taught that to him!), a notorious hacker/virus developer in the night, in cahoots with Terumi and thinks it'll be fun if he uses the virus for Trolling (rather than posting). As it turns out, he handed down the virus to Terumi which infected Arakune... and seems like to develop an unhealthy crush on Litchi, ultimately blackmailing her the program to clean Arakune's virus, in exchange of her defending his and Terumi's trolling.

They're both comic relief Large Hams who defend something (Gordon defends, well, Earth, and Bang is a "defender of love and justice") and are possibly homages to other series. (Gordon is clearly an tribute to Flash Gordon, while Bang's mannerisms and fighting style just scream of Naruto.) Of course, if this theory were true, who are his Jennifer and Thursday? Could they be Litchi and her panda?

Yukianesa is Jin's childhood turned into a Nox by Terumi.

Yukianesa is nowhere in sight when Terumi burnt down the orphanage and right after that, Jin apparently lost his memories. After being adopted by the Kisaragi family, Jin somewhat leads a normal life, never even remembering his past (which probably explains why he's so nice with Tsubaki). However, when Jin gets promoted and receives Yukianesa, he started getting loopy. Why is that?

It's true that a Nox Nyctores amplifies the user's psychosis, but why is the effect so big to Jin? Because like how Jin is contained in Hakumen's armor, Yukianesa contains a part of Jin's soul: his childhood, courtesy of Terumi. A part where he hated Ragna for ignoring him, and Saya for taking away his brother. Which kind of explains why in Continuum Shift, he tried conversing like an aloof senior, but then Yukianesa took over and he goes on 'KILL' mode.

Basically, there are three faces of Jin:

Past: His crazy mode. Happens when possessed by Yukianesa.

Present: His normal, aloof self. Which he usually displays to Tsubaki.

Future: Hakumen. It kinda makes sense that when Hakumen declares that he is discarding the past, it could also mean that he realizes that Yukianesa is evil and thus threw it away and decides to live looking to the future.

As much as I find this interesting, this is pretty much jossed: Nine created the first 9 Nox Nyctores, that includes Yukianesa. (Bonus info: the first Yukianesa wielder was someone from Kisaragi family as well.)

Both enjoy engaging in cruelty to Saya-alikes, both combine a calm facade with murderous psychopathy, and Jin's arcade mode has him giving a version of Terumi's signature "This world is nothing but lies" to Tsubaki. Also, everything in BlazBlue is a reference to something else, and such a thing has been done elsewhere.

That actually makes sense: In the first loop, Jin rejects Susanooh and becomes Terumi. In later cycles he accepts Susanooh and becomes Hakumen.

Then how did he retain his voice when he's Hakumen, but changes his voice when he's Terumi? Also, Jin stated that the one truth is 'death'. Terumi's brand of truth is "despair." While they could go hand-in-hand, death and despair could be interpreted differently (we have a trope for "happy death"). They may be similar in thinking line, but they could still be a different person.

BlazBlue is no stranger to all sorts of temporal/spatial hijinks, but Terumi being an alternate form of Jin doesn't pan out well; Terumi's been around since before the Dark War. Sure, you could say Jin fell through a cauldron, wound up in the past (well, even further in the past), and then—somehow—became Terumi, but there's a slim chance of that being pulled off in a believable manner that doesn't strike the fandom as coming right out of left field and/or character assassination on what we know about Terumi up to this point.

Ultimately Jossed in CF - Terumi is older than the world before the main world the plot takes place in. Great idea, though.

Lambda and Nu and presumably Mu as well have limited teleportation abilities. We've seen sort-of teleportation in ZOE with Zero Shift and the Urenbeck Catapult. There's the fact that Lambda and Nu's Murakumo unit armours rather resemblance Anubis, especially during the winpose where they face the camera with the sword-wings spread. Plus Metatron has done some trippy shit before, like making Radium go nuts. Maybe it enabled Ragna and Nu's fusion into the Black Beast?

Both are blonde, wield a sword, have an annoying companion that won't shut up (Yukianesa and Navi; and hey, Yukianesa means snow fairy!), time travel, fated to defeat a great evil, and later wield a sword that's effective against said evil (Ookami and the Master Sword). And once they're through with saving the world? They run into another problem not long after; one that could very well doom the world. But if all else fails, the world will just reset itself anyway. Also, Jin's afraid of the moon falling. So yeah.

There are Beastmen, and just try to tell me Bang isn't a Spiral. Plus, MOOOOOOOOOON!

Saya is the host for the Amaterasu Unit.

... Or at least has a certain connection to it that Terumi targeted for her.

Probably Jossed.

Definitely Jossed. Terumi used her to try to destroy it and Izanami is using Saya as a vessel.

Kokonoe is older than she looks.

Her mother was Nine, a human woman who fought with Hakumen in the Dark War 95 years ago. This means she can't have been born more than about 30 years after the Dark War. She must have inherited her father's long lifespan.

Definitely confirmed. Chronophantasma has Jubei referring to a young Kokonoe being put in the custody of the NOL so as to not endanger her because he's on the run from the government during a conversation with Celica after the Dark War and Terumi's betrayal, and before that, Makato's "Help Me, Professor Kokonoe" segment has Kokonoe bemoaning her lack of womanly endowments (and how she didn't inherit anything from her mother); when Makoto tries to cheer her up ("They'll grow eventually!"), Kokonoe says she's way older than Makoto ("Like, 'if I HAD 'em, they'd be down to my KNEES' old!").

Ragna will merge with the remains of the Black Beast.

He already has prior to the first game. Rachel's story in the Material Collection is about how after she saved him he broke the seal on the Black Beast's remains and merged with it. It became his right arm and his fake Azure.

If it's any consolation, the Imperator turns Ragna into a sort of humanoid Black Beast (similar to his CS Bad Ending) at the very end of Chronophantasma.

Continuum Shift's sequel will see an epic quest for Bang Shishigami to cancel Litchi's Face–Heel Turn and possibly genuinely win her love.

They're all heading for Ikaruga now, and Bang still remains the force of goodness. This will be a test for Bang whether he CAN sway Litchi to the other side and prove his love for real. Maybe his new Nox would cure Arakune so it cancels out Litchi's joining with NOL. And if Bang does it full-heartedly, maybe Litchi would finally see that he's really a good man and would take him seriously. Except love, if Arakune is cured and alive. Still, this looks as if Litchi's Face–Heel Turn is a premonition to Bang's most epic quest.

This Troper believes that Carl will be the one to save Litchi, along with Bang perhaps. In Carl's true ending in CT, Litchi sacrifices her life to protect him from being killed by Nu, reminding him of his own sister's kind heart. In fact, in CS story mode, Carl says that he wishes he could grow up to be a kind person like Litchi one day. Also, Relius is the one who manipulated her, giving Carl even more reason to save her. So, it wouldn't be surprising if Bang worked together with Carl to rescue Litchi and Arakune.

For one, I would suppose that Carl would concentrate further in defeating Relius, leaving the rescue to Bang. According to the rumors, the Nox that he has and Platinum the Trinity is training him to use has recovery elements, thus Bang would be the one to do the job to cure Arakune.

Going with the above entry, Bang will be forced into a Moral Dilemma regarding Arakune and Litchi

Litchi, one way or another, will end up being corrupted after extensive use of the Boundary's power, which, for lack of better phrasing, ends up royally fucking with her mind. For some reason, Bang is only able to use his supposed recovery Nox once, or suffer some form of consequence. Bang will either have to choose to save the love of his life, when all it means is going right back to where they all started, or curing Arakune, fulfilling her wishes at the cost of her well being. Alternatively, he only thinks he has one use, but everything was actually okay from the get-go, we have a little laugh, and he saves them both.

Or for worse, based on the other WMG about Tao's joke ending below (this is a really Darker and Edgier setting after all): Bang only has one use of the Houyoku... but if he wants to save more than one, he'll have to use the Houyoku on himself, which would work like an area heal... at cost of his live. I Want My Beloved to Be Happy occurs and Bang makes an epic heroic sacrifice to cure both Litchi and Arakune. This is also a pretty common outcome for characters like Bang after all (see: Kamina). Then maybe Carl would take up/inherit Bang's manliness and become a REAL GAR (like Simon).

Alternatively, Bang's mental dilemma is not about Arakune at all... it's his personal preference. Look at the things he liked in the Material Setting Collection: Justice and Litchi. At this moment, if he arrives at Ikaruga, he'll no doubt has to choose a Sadistic Choice: Either he has to take Litchi down in the name of justice (she's going to Ikaruga as part of NOL, presumably as an invading force), or he cannot bring her down at all. Either way, he has to choose what he likes more between those two. I'm seeing the next installment as a moment when Bang stops being a Joke Character and shows a serious side.

Going by the third game, the moral dilemma is definitely confirmed, but in a different way: Bang really can't fathom how Carl and Litchi goes to side with Relius in the climax. And he does become a bit more serious after that. The nail is already being used for something else, though, and Arakune's problem is not resolved yet.

With lots and lots and parallels to go. I kept thinking that Mori might be reading Bleach and thinks "Hah! I can do better!"

As we all know, Hazama/Terumi is Gin. This is reinforced when he's revealed to be NOT the Big Bad.

Saya is Aizen, being the one behind Hazama/Terumi and even NOL. And what does she do while Hazama/Terumi distracts you? Destroy Amaterasu, organized the hacking of Takamagahara. Sounds like killing Central 46 and extracting Hougyoku to me!

Tsubaki is getting parallels with Tousen. She ends up blind, and frustration about Noel taking her place drove her mad and refused the good way, similar to how Tousen ends up forsaking the proper way of Shinigami after his friend's death frustrated him and ends up siding with Aizen.

Relius is somewhat a parallel to Ulquiorra. When Ulquiorra debuts, he's rather minor in fighting scene (even when he makes his debut, he leaves most fighting to Yammy), but he hides a great power by himself, quite possibly being a playable character when CS sequel comes out. When he caught Arakune and coaxes Litchi to join NOL, this is similar with how Ulquiorra forced Orihime to unconditionally go to Hueco Mundo. Also, Relius has Grimmjow's voice.

It's now pretty much true that Litchi is the parallel for Orihime. They're both busty healers whose powers seem to be sourced from their "hairpins" or something (except Litchi is more willing to get into battle). This goes into the ultimate kicker when both of them had to surrender themselves to the bad guys to save someone they love.

Noel is a bit like Rukia, as in they hid something really great that the bad guys sought (Urahara hid Hougyoku in Rukia; while Noel has the makings to become the Kusanagi, which Terumi sought). They're also flat chested (though Rukia is more or less uncaring about that)

Bang... is Uryuu, only more boisterous and more into manliness than fruitiness. Even though Ragna is pretty far from Ichigo, Bang himself hails from a city that has its population reduced greatly (like how the Quincy came to near extinct). While Bang is stalking Litchi and full of that advances, Uryuu has a more subtle feeling towards Orihime. When Litchi made the decision to join NOL; Bang was away training with Platinum the Trinity, like how Uryuu is away training with Ryuuken when Orihime went to Hueco Mundo.

Taokaka's joke ending in CT is going to be fulfilled

It's been confirmed that one of them is true: Litchi becoming an antagonist. However, another factor can be considered fulfilled: Jin the main antagonist was not meant to be Jin, but Relius, because CT forbids that Relius be seen so they had to use Jin as a model for him (and in actuality Jin gets into a full blown protagonist). Therefore... yeah, we can expect Bang going out in a blaze of glory, and Tao getting her Super Deluxe mode.

There's a new mechanic for Chronophantasma that involves a Super Mode, so this might be fulfilled, at least partially.

Iron Tager is Lord Tenjo.

All we know of his past prior to being Iron Tager is that he was a "Leader of Ikaruga Resistance." It's not entirely impossible that Kokonoe, with her mastery of both science and magic could repair the frozen and sliced apart body of Lord Tenjo, and recreate it in the form of Iron Tager.

Alternatively, she didn't repair his body, but merely put his soul into an entirely artificial body, like what she did with Nu and Lambda. Thus explaining why Bang doesn't recognize him. And obviously, some memories would be lost (intentionally or otherwise) in the process, so Tager doesn't recognize Bang.

Alternatively alternatively, Tager is Tenjo's son, who Valkenhayn hinted might still be alive at the end of CT and who Bang goes searching for in CS.

Saya's goal doesn't sound so evil or enjoyable for Terumi in the long run, and he seems to be the type of person that "Screw everyone else, everything is all about me!" in a more extreme version than Relius. I would predict that in the end of the sequel of CS, Terumi stabs Saya in the back no matter what her true intention is, grab her power, corrupt it for his own and turn to the Big Bad that everyone would pull themselves together to kick his ass. He may also take Relius for the ride, or kill him.

Except they have the EXACT same goal. Terumi wants to kill the world because for 100 years he saw the "truth" and had to listen to souls screaming at him. That "truth" being that the world is supposed to be dead but is distorted and is just endlessly repeating. This is revealed during Noel's True Ending.

Thing is, Saya has no visible motivation for her goal as of yet. Terumi has a personal one. Considering he kidnapped Saya in the first place, it's very likely he instilled his own goals and beliefs into her.

Being an orphan Ill Girl with a brother that babied her and a brother that bullied her might have been all the motivation she needed to hate the world.

Put it this way: By the next game, Hazama would be more likely to become some sort of "regular" character, while Saya takes his place as the Arcade Mode's Final Boss. How are you going to excuse Hazama going against Saya? Simple, have him say You Have Outlived Your Usefulness and start the betrayal.

Possibly Jossed, in that it's confirmed Saya is a puppet queen. Terumi and Relius are the Men Behind the Woman, and she's being used as a "vessel" for them. She's a tool for him, and he needs her in her position to retain control. However Chronphantasma reveals that Saya is possessed by Izanami and she's been using Terumi and Relius as her pawns the entire time and later backstabs them so it's Jossed.

You know they live in an orphanage. And they have blond hairs (used to, for Ragna). And you know how Relius acts for his children. Also, in CS, it is revealed that Ragna and Jin aren't really humans. Thus, Relius might've experimented them to the point that they're no longer humans (though they still look human), then suddenly considered them a failed project and threw them off, along with Saya. When he met Terumi, he probably realized that Saya still has potential, thus had Terumi capture her so he can create the androids out of her (Noel, Nu, Lambda, etc).

I thought Rags and Jin were indeed humans, but just gifted with weird power. Ragna given the power of the destroyer through his azure while Jin manifested his Order due to Ragna's existence?

Nope, they are like Noel. Also, here are some suspicious things. Nu was created by Relius. Isn't the fact that Nu has WHITE hair despite being a SAYA clone strange? Nu and Saya are blonde. Nu also has a life-link with Ragna, of all people. When the hell was this lifelink supposed to be created? My guess is that "father" is maybe too much, but Relius definitely had something to do with the creation of the 3 "siblings", or at least Ragna. Hazama needed Noel by his side in order to create a life-link.

Not quite. No source material states that any of the three original siblings are false humanoids. (If it was revealed in-game I really want to see where.) Ragna is half-vampire due to being bitten by Rachel, but Jin and maybe Saya are still considered full human as far as canon is concerned. It's just that their family line is VERY gifted with Armagus capabilities.

It's not outright stated, but it is speculation based on CT Material Collection mentioning successful experiment creating artificial humans based on Black Beast DNA and CS True End where Ragna stated that he's not sure that he is normal human.

Carl will be the 3rd game's 4th Protagonist

As of current, Ragna, Jin and Noel do not concern themselves of Relius, the OTHER great threats, very much. Carl, on the other hand, has a lot of beefs against Relius. Rather than having any other people dealing with him (would be Anti-Climax if Ragna, without buildups and such, suddenly tossed Relius aside), it'd be fitting that Carl is the one to ultimately off him. Between his Character Development and Mori telling about Carl's prominence in CS Story and declaring him the strongest vigilante... Perhaps in the 3rd game, Carl will be some sort of 4th Protagonist, leading the vigilantes (Bang, Platinum and perhaps Taokaka) to assault on Relius while Ragna and the other big guns deal mainly with Terumi and Saya.

Well, Rachel's arcade victory quote against Carl actually seems to be implying that Carl will have a much bigger role soon.

Jossed. In CP, he's still trying to take down Relius and additionally bring Litchi back to his side. Then, he surprisingly joins up with Relius after he tells Carl he'll "recreate" Ada. At this point, he, Litchi, and a defeated/humiliated Relius have formed a sort of "neutral" contingent; the alliance is temporary, and Carl plans to make Relius pay for his crimes once he upholds his promises to Carl and Litchi.

The Imperator will turn out to be the master of another powerful Unit

Assuming the Imperator isn't just a puppet ruler, how else would Saya keep people like Terumi and Relius in line? Following the trend of naming things after deities and artifacts in Japanese Mythology, the Imperator's Unit will probably be named after a mythological Big Bad like Amatsu-Mikaboshi.

Jossed as the Imperator is Izanami the Goddess of Death using Saya as a vessel.

Technically speaking, not Jossed. There's no additional "unit" to speak of (there's only three Sankishin, remember), but the Imperator does use Takamagahara for phenomena interventions and calls forth Gigant: Take-Mikazuchi in her bid to destroy the Master Unit when Amaterasu is drawn out of the Boundary.

Litchi's current situation is one way for Toshimichi Mori to say something to SNK Playmore... especially Garou: Mark of the Wolves

If anyone remembers Garou, in the presumably most canonical ending, Rock Howard ends up joining Kain R. Heinlein in order to find out more about his mother, which Kain might have information about and he told Rock that she's might still be alive. However, years and years and it looks like Garou 2, which may resolve on how Rock goes along with Kain, went through Development Hell and hasn't been touched while The King of Fighters has gone to about 13 official titles. Mark of the Wolves is acclaimed as one of the better fighters of SNK, so perhaps Mori has learned about it... and is pissed on the Development Hell it went through.

So, his take was, to give a BlazBlue character a similar situation with Rock. Rather than picking Ragna, he picked Litchi, the one who has all the makings of such "last minute Face–Heel Turn", thus, Hazama convincing her might look like how Kain convinced Rock:

Hazama: "Join us... or that blob is dead."

Litchi: "I'll never join you!"

Hazama: "What if I say that we HAVE the only cure?

Litchi: "Ugh... fine."

tl;dr, this is pretty much Mori's way to say this to SNKP: "Hurry the @$%@# up with Garou 2 already, or I will 'finish' that idea before you could!" (Because the sequel of Continuum Shift seems more likely than Garou 2.)

Valkenhayn is a werewolf, but Toshimichi Mori did not initially plan this.

Initially, Valkenhayn was just going to be Rachel's Battle Butler who is actually one of the Six Heroes. But then Toshimichi Mori heard about the sequel to Twilight and thought, "Now she's making werewolves suck, too? THIS IS WRONG. I MUST FIX THIS." And he rewrote the story to make Valkenhayn a werewolf.

Pretty much because those two are the only adults he knows that are good person (Litchi has proved herself many times, while in one of his CT story paths with him meeting Bang, Carl noted that while he's over the top, Bang isn't really a horrible person). So pretty much those two (mainly Litchi, but Bang may be a second consideration) will be one of the counterpoints Carl has against Relius who's trying to prove him that adults are evil. Thus, in any case, he might try shipping them both, or at least push them together (Carl might be the one to give Bang a What the Hell, Hero? for his over-the-top advances to Litchi (if Platinum the Trinity didn't bother to do it already); while he also might be the one to persuade Litchi that Bang is more than just a dirty Stalker with a Crush and is more than willing to help)

Specifically, between the main continuity and the events of Angel Notes. At some point prior to the events of that story, something "killed" the planet, covering it in a toxic substance called "Gin" or "Grain", though humans eventually developed a tolerance for it. In the meantime they created the A-Rays, creatures genetically engineered from human and animal DNA which could absorb Gin to power special abilities.

The Black Beast seems to fit the "planet killer" bill, with Gin being basically the same thing as seithr, and the Kaka clan are oh so obviously the first A-Rays. Bang might even be an early example of the freakishly powerful Ether Liners.

Rachel is most likely the descendant of Arcueid Brunestud and Tohno Shiki - she can remember the previous timelines due to her inheriting the Pure Eyes of the Nanaya clan, which allow the owner to see things which normally cannot be seen. This is supported by the power of Observers being referred to as "The Eye".

"The Boundary" is the same thing as the "Akasha", "Root" or "Origin" desired by all magi. Both the Azure Grimoire and the Holy Grail are described as "devices to reach Origin", use homunculi with white-blonde hair and red eyes as mediums, and can produce monsters made of darkness under the wrong circumstances. In addition, "The Third Magic" used by the Holy Grail has the power to keep souls in the world after they should have passed on, which seems to describe Terumi. Arakune's transformation is the result of him following imperfect rituals left by the Makiri family. Somehow, Litchi gained access to The Second Magic used by Zelretch (with similar effects to those of the Kaleidostick's Prism Trance).

The Sankishin go as follows:

Tsukoyomi: Named after a moon god, this contains the remaining power of Crimson Moon Brunestud (aka Type-Moon), hence why it is held by a vampire.

Susanoo: The White Beast of Gaia, Primate Murder, attempted to stop the Black Beast but was killed. Its remains were reshaped into a suit of armour, and its wearer inherited its task of protecting Gaia as a being similar to a Counter Guardian.

Amaterasu: Gaia itself, or posibly a "Type-Sol" (who is presumably killed before the events of Angel Notes).

Saya is likely a descendant of Sakura or Sion (see WMG further up the page). Given the resemblance of her Boundary-granted abilities to Kaleidoscope, Litchi might be descended from the Tohsakas (who were known to study Chinese martial arts).

The principles behind Touko Aozaki's "Mystic Eye killer" glasses were used to create the Izayoi, and Relius Clover may very well have studied her doll-making techniques.

Tao is Neco-Arc.

Ragna has become a "perfect" Black Beast

Originally the Black Beast was created by a fusion of Ragna and Nu, with Nu's mind in control, resulting in an uncontrollable monster. In Continuum Shift, Nu sacrifices herself to give Ragna the power to save Noel - in other words creating a fusion of Ragna and Nu with Ragna's mind in control, which retains his normal appearance. This could very well have been The Plan on the part of one the antagonists.

Doubtful. Saving Noel did cost him his fake Azure Grimoire arm. Chances are in the next game his fighting style will revolve more around the techniques Jubei taught him, whatever power he may have gotten from Rachel and his spiffy new robot arm (courtesy of Kokonoe) now that he can't use "Soul Eater" anymore.

Saving Noel actually cost him his OTHER arm. His Fake Azure is still intact, but both his arms are now fake/robotic. No need for new playstyle.

My bad. But man, both arms gone now? It really sucks to be Ragna.

All of CS was planned by Terumi. He specifically needed Ragna to defeat Mu-12, knowing it would divert the attention of the Observers for a brief instant, thus allowing him to kill them all.

The Black Beast WASN'T created by a fusion of Ragna and Nu but rather their false Azure Grimoires merging, Ragna's Azure was the body and Nu's was the heart/soul. Since Lambda didn't have Nu's Azure when she merged with Ragna it didn't create a "Perfect" Black Beast but just gave Ragna access to the Idea Engine that Kokonoe created. Ragna's probably still at risk of turning into an incomplete, humanoid Black Beast like he does in his Normal Ending if he overuses the Azure.

Chronophantasma basically confirms that last sentence. The Azure Grimoire has corroded the entire right half of Ragna's body (hence the red right eye and why his right eye and arm don't work in the presence of Celica, whose mere presencenullifies seithr, and, at the end, Izanami turns him into a humanoid Black Beast a la his story's bad ending from CS.

Houyoku's ability is said to SEVER the connection with Boundary, but not destroy the Boundary elements in it. So, when Bang hits Arakune with Houyoku; while it will certainly restore Roy into normal, the remnants of the Boundary will gather up into one new being, the true Arakune, a la Eddie from Guilty Gear. If BlazBlue continues after the Continuum Shift sequel, Arakune will no longer inhabit Roy's body, but rather become a sentient beast like Eddie, desperately looking for a new host. In other words, Bang... Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!.

Who said Arakune needs a new host? After the severing, Arakune will become much like the Venom symbiote and Roy will goop up whenever he needs to fight.

So far avoided for the time being, as Bang had to use Rettenjo to activate Kushinada's Lynchpin and thus prevent the Imperator/Izanami from using Take-Mikazuchi to destroy Amaterasu.

Based on the WMG above, Eddie!Arakune will be the Karmic Death of Relius

This might be ending the game after the sequel of Continuum Shift. Thing is, after Bang hits Arakune with Houyoku, Arakune left Roy and will seek a new host... who better than the nearby Relius, who sought vast knowledge to make the perfect doll? Unfortunately for Relius, the mass Boundary elements contained by Arakune is also too much for Relius and he started losing his mind just like Roy did. Eventually, he's reduced to be like Arakune, except nobody cared about him since he's done too many atrocities (that not even Carl would forgive). Then, Hakumen comes in and strikes him down for being corrupted by the Boundary, before Relius could try to master the Arakune moveset, thereby making Hakumen kill a non-tragic monster unlike when he killed Roy in Arakune's CT Story.

Specifically, the first game is based on the "Endless Eight" storyline. Ragna is Kyon, and Nu is Haruhi (sort of).

Does that mean that Jin/Hakumen is Mikuru?

Terumi will be backstabbed and sealed for good by Saya

We don't know how much it will succeed, though. Basically, Saya might be aware of what kind of person Terumi is and decided to eliminate him one day when they make death in the world permanent, so Terumi doesn't come back to troll people. Her plan was to have him sealed in the Boundary after he's taken out, and make sure he never comes back. This is why she purportedly has Relius investigate Arakune and get Litchi to join her, since due to their usage/knowledge of Boundary, they will be able to find a way to seal Terumi for good.

The reason of this is because Litchi's defection to NOL may mirror another event in Guilty Gear: Anji Mito goes from a carefree Japanese into an agent of That Man, and his first mission was to arrest I-No and get her sealed. Considering Saya-Terumi is getting like That Man-I-No...

Doubtful, considering Relius is Terumi's partner, and Saya is their puppet.

Or so Terumi thought. He and Relius are just Unwitting Pawns for the Imperator, and while Relius and Izanami actually interact with cordiality (despite Relius' own plans diverging from Izanami's "world of death" plot) whereas Izanami detests Terumi (but is always polite about it) because of Saya's scant influence on her, she makes it quite clear that once they've fulfilled their roles, death will be their sweet reward.

Jin forcefully took Yukianesa from Saya

In Continuum Shift, it's revealed that Jin got Yukianesa from Saya. Now, we all know that Jin was a colossal Jerk Ass even as a child, so it's unlikely that he would have gotten that weapon as a gift due to him bullying the living hell out of Saya. So, then, suppose that he coerced her into handing it over while Ragna was out fetching water before the church was burned down.

My guess is as revealed in CS, Jin is the antibody created by the world in response to Ragna being the possible Destroyer of the World, to destroy anything that might be a threat to the world. This is what causes Jin's psychosis, he's reacting negatively to his natural enemy. Now we know that the villains needed Noel to access and destroy Amaterasu. We know that Noel was never meant to survive Ikaruga, but every successive loop increases the chance that Noel will survive to the point where her survival is almost guaranteed in every loop. Now, the villains need to ensure that the loops keep repeating itself. What causes the loops? First is Ragna and Nu-13 fusing, falling into the Cauldron, forming the Black Beast and going back in time. The second is Jin following them, becoming Hakumen, forming the Six Heroes, and teaching mankind the art of magic thus ensuring they will eventually be advanced enough create Nu-13 and restarting the loop all over again. Ragna merging with Nu is all but guaranteed. Terumi "kidnapping" Saya, destroying his life, and having him know what the NOL is doing with Saya ensures he will go after them in every loop, where Nu will be ready to defeat and merge with him. As for Jin? Yukianesa amplifies his emotions, magnifying his natural instinct to kill Ragna. In other words, Yukianesa was intentionally given to Jin to ensure he will go after Ragna once he receives news that he's heading for Kagutsuchi, where he will end up following Ragna to the past and becoming Hakumen.

Jossed possibly, as it's hinted that Saya could've been possessed by Izanami at the time as, in the CP Material Collection, Ragna noted that Saya's personality changed.

Terumi is actually Tomoya Okazaki after countless times of getting the bad end

Tomoya does border on a Jerkass in how many times he makes Sunohara's life a hilarious living hell. However, in the same time, he's gotten a lot of shits thrown at him (Heartwrenching, even), and was forced to live up to many variations on his life for many times (playing the game many times). Terumi is the result when Tomoya failed to get into CLANNAD's true ending after so long. The stress of losing Nagisa and Ushio and dying miserably so many times pushed Tomoya over the edge, and thus when he dies AGAIN... he completely loses it and decided "Ah screw it! Since the world is making me a miserable bitch, I will have my vengeance! I will make this world a horrible place for life!". Then, his ghost didn't even bother to reincarnate and he changed his name to "Terumi Yuuki"... and the rest is history.

Taokaka will be the new Boobie Lady in the next sequel.

The changes in her latest in-game sprites is a clue! Now that Litchi has done a Face–Heel Turn there will be a "good" counterpart who will get in her way: The grown up Taokaka.

Are we forgetting MAKOTO? She's technically out of NOL and stationed in where Litchi started: Sector Seven. She's got'em bigger than Noel and Tsubaki as well, plus LOOK AT HER CLOTHES!

Although she's (relatively speaking) more sensibly dressed than Makoto, Bullet has Tao and Makoto squarely outmatched. Nothing quite says well-endowed like Mori singling out her cup size as the first thing to talk about while discussing the character and then laughing about it. Plus, Tao really didn't grow up so much as the sprites in CT weren't accurate to official artwork.

The next game will have either Dr. Han or Linhua as a PC

Now that Litchi has gone into NOL, Orient Town is practically unrepresented come next game. The only one who can represent them now is either both of them. If included, Linhua can be seen as how Mori would've handled Satellite Characters eventually (unlike how Kishimoto deals with Tenten), and seeing that she's the closest with Litchi, she'd be one of the people who'll try to convince her that even if she lost Arakune, she still have a home in Orient Town. Dr. Han, on the other hand, would be a chance for Arksys for a more proper Faust counterpart, being a wacko doctor (he's noted to be eccentric).

Jossed. With the change in setting to the Hierarchical Cities of the Ikaruga Federation, it seems that both characters stayed put in Kagutsuchi. Maybe in the inevitable Chronophantasma Extend?

Not just on the basis of they're the series' respective Boobie Ladies. Litchi used to live separated with the whole cast (only concerning herself to save Arakune), and had Taokaka to continuously pester her about her boobs; just like Rider isolating herself with the humans and had her sisters Euryale and Stheno tease and bully her. However, when they expose themselves to the humanities, they went batshit and practically gets to have a Face–Heel Turn or sorts (Rider turns into the scary Gorgon form after being harassed with humans one too many; while probably a lot of people didn't care about Litchi wanting to save Arakune and in desperation after realizing that Arakune is in danger; she ends up joining NOL), and probably in the near future, just like how Rider eventually consumed Euryale and Stheno, in her tenure as an ally of NOL, Litchi ends up wounding or even killing Taokaka, and had a massive Freak Out!, realizing she crossed the Moral Event Horizon. She'll end up as a Death Seeker, urging those who fight her to kill her already, in which someone (presumably Bang), as the counterpart of Rider's Perseus, will defeat her and might kill her.

Specifically, a descendant of Shiki, who must have reclaimed the name sometime. Obvious surnames aside, her Astral splitting the moon after the opponent gets punched into it - which, if you've been paying attention around this site, is harder than most might think - must be thanks to some form of the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception.

Imperator Saya, it's even her size, and fighting games that "kill" off characters always find someone new to give the moveset to.

Actually I expect that Saya will have her own, new unique style while the Nu as the "Sword of Izanami/the Imperator" will be the new Mu.

Jossed. Both Mu and Nu are in CP as separate characters (Mu as an individually playable Super Mode for Noel, Nu working for the villains against her will). The Imperator, on the other hand, isn't playable per se; she commands Take-Mikazuchi and assists the Nox with a few attacks of her own as you do battle with it.

The translator in Continuum Shift is a Troper.

Otherwise, how in the hell can they come up with such big shout out list to the other media? Such as "Why So Serious" and "Heeeeere's Terumi!"...

He, or at least a part of him broke free of the Black Beast to fight against it after it was pulled into the past. His sword and coat are yet more time paradoxes.

Which would explain going out of his way to save Jubei, and Bloodedge's vow to fight to the end as a human being.

Confirmed. Bloodedge was the Ragna who went into the Cauldron with Nu. Nu only managed to merge with his Azure and become the Black Beast while he ended up in the year 2106 and became Bloodedge. He was absorbed by the Black Beast when he saved Jubei and was part of it for the rest of the war.

Where did they confirm this?

The Phase 0 light novel.

And again in the story of Chronophantasma. More specifically Bloodedge is the Ragna of the current timeline, who goes back in time at Rachel's behest to learn about how to activate Kushinada's Lynchpin, allowing him to set up his Heroic Sacrifice (and various other elements of the Stable Time Loop) from the story Jubei told him once he realizes he's Bloodedge.

The Crimson Grimoire will play a larger role down the line, and Ragna was not only told about it but where he could find it.

What the hell is he going to do with a giant tuna, though? Aside from feeding Taokaka, that is.

Sorry I didn't explain this one well, I mean that there is a device like the Azure Grimoire called the Crimson Grimoire and it's somewhere in Ikaruga, it may also use a different form of energy, but that's another WMG.

Confirmed! ... But not in the way you expect. The Crimson Grimoire, also known as the Burning Red, turns out be important to the Remix Heart doujin in later chapters. It's apparently the ultimate grimoire created by Nine during the Dark War, but no one was able to obtain it, until it turns out, thanks to her contact with the Azure Grimoire (from meeting Ragna during one of the group's misadventures) and Adsequi Grimoire (during a run-in with the lingering soul of a NOL soldier trapped in Torifune), Mai has become the container for the Crimson Grimoire, which has caught the attention of several parties, most prominently Relius, who is gearing up for a trip to the Military Academy alongside Hazama to look into the situation.

Uh, that is somewhat wrong... Mai is merely a component of creating the Burning Red, thanks to her being a "Remix Heart" (a perfect combination of a person and a grimoire). The one who uses BR is the rogue named Seifer Albar, but even then when he tried to form it, it's incomplete because there's not enough souls to power it. In the end, no one owns Burning Red (unless you count said incomplete one being apparently on Hazama's hands).R

At any rate, while he serves Saya, his goal differs further than her, in a similar way of Kefka and Emperor Gestahl. Saya wants to restore the world to its original form so it fell into her complete rule and order, just like how Gestahl wants to rule the world. On the other hand, Terumi's goal seems more to the destruction of the world. He's a chaotic being, he probably wouldn't like an orderly world. Therefore, I can see that by the third game, Terumi will backstab Saya and take over as the Big Bad... then sets the third game to have a Downer Ending whereas he turns the world even MORE crapsack than usual. Then the fourth, final game will involve Ragna (or perhaps Noel?) gathering up anyone who's against Terumi, and then pose for one final showdown against the now God-like Terumi. Relius may either die with Saya or become Terumi's right hand man in result.

Jossed as we find that Izanami is possessing Saya and she betrayed Terumi and Relius.

As it stands now, Litchi has made a decision nearly as bad and selfish as Spider-Man himself. Just like how he refused to let Aunt May to die despite her wish to just pass away already, Litchi refused to let Arakune die despite him begging her to just end his life already. Then what happens was Spidey/Litchi made a deal with someone extremely shady: Mephisto/NOL, which changes the Status Quo that would make their fans say "WTF": Spidey got his marriage erased, Litchi is now viewed as an antagonist, and both got their bases broken.

However, this Troper is convinced that Toshimichi Mori isn't Joe Quesada as he tried hard to make Litchi still look sympathetic and justified, as well as making her adhere the philosophy of "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility" (in which she feels like Arakune's curing is her utmost responsibility and she had to comply to it no matter what). Therefore, while Quesada will probably be satisfied with Spidey living with that devilish choice, with no one or himself to care, Mori is probably going to make Litchi feel extreme guilt and eventually get out of that condition, by herself or by being rescued. Thus in the end, if One More Day doesn't get a Retcon when Litchi's arc concluded, Mori will be able to join the anti-Quesada camp and say, "You want a 'selfish' character story? This is how it's done, Quesada!"

Arakune is going to die in the third game.

His real name says it all. It is a horrible, cursed name that only results in brutal death, even an entire millennium after your ancestors left their home planet and relocated to Earth to escape it. Trying to break the curse is what drove Arakune to research the power of the Azure in the first place.

Given this image◊ in the trailer for the Chronophantasma, that might be more of a possibility than we think.

Unless the OP specifically meant "Mori's Jerkass Stu" as in "Mori's Author Avatar, who also happens to be a Stu", you can be a Sue/Stu without being an avatar (and for that matter, an Author Avatar doesn't necessarily have to be voiced by the creator either). Heck, Terumi's already pushing Villain Sue status in the eyes of many.

As said, he has the Phoenix: Rettenjou Nox. In the arcades, Arakune feared that Bang will rub him with his belt because it will make him 'cease to exist'. Meaning, Arakune knows what Phoenix: Rettenjou is, and where it's located. Which is Bang's belt. And since it looks like a Rider belt, it means that to activate the Nox, Bang just needs to do a Kamen Rider henshin pose and yell... then he will turn into a Rider-like creature. Kamen Rider Phoenix?

Nope, the Nox is the nail.

Saya is actually a Murakamo Unit herself, and was never Ragna's sister in the first place.

This speculation comes from the idea that Terumi is indeed the one running everything behind the scenes, and through Relius, actually created Saya herself, who's now Terumi's "puppet queen" as mentioned in an above entry. Notice how stoic her personality is and how monotonous her manner of speech is in her appeances in Continuum Shift? Recall Noel talking that way in Calamity Trigger when she first encountered Nu-13? Then Saya herself must just like them. Speaking of which, how is it that Nu-13 seems to "know" Ragna the most and not Saya the Imperator (who called Ragna "scum")? It's because Nu-13 was in fact the "Saya" who was Ragna's sister, planted there in the past by Terumi in order to condition her into becoming sweet and clingy to Ragna before "kidnapping" her, reprogramming her, and eventually placing her in the Cauldron in Kagutsuchi. That way Nu-13 would be eagerly waiting for Ragna and thus fulfill her role of merging with Ragna to form the Black Beast and ensure the occurrence of all the significant chain of events. And as for Saya, she will eventually assume her true Murakamo Unit form by the third game to be the final boss there when the time comes.

Jossed that Saya is actually a vessel for the goddess of death Izanami.

Granted, Terumi not being the true mastermind still doesn't necessarily mean Saya (and by Saya, I mean pre-possession by Izanami) wasn't one of the other Murakumo Units (though likely not the first Prime Field Device) or, as alternatively suggested, the template for (some of) them, hence why at least three of them resemble her).

Noel will have the ability to assume her Murakamo Unit form (aka Mu-12) at will in the third game.

Since at the end of Continuum Shift she and Tager are now in the same team, then she must have met and talked with Kokonoe as well (who did want to have Noel captured during Continuum Shift in the first place if you recall). During this time, Kokonoe made a few "enhancements" to Noel, so that she would have an "ace in the hole" in what could be the fight of her life in the third game. This could either be a device similar to the "Idea Engine" Lambda-11 had (now possessed by Ragna, which was how he was able to kick Terumi's ass and turn Mu-12 back to Noel), or an enhancement to Bolverk. Either way, it's unlikely Noel would be sent there to Ikaruga without such an "ace in the hole" given what she, Tager, and everyone else will be up against. And this time, Mu-12 won't be Noel's Superpowered Evil Side, but rather, Noel will still be in full control of herself, and will be able to change herself back to normal if and when she's done fighting the big fight.

Seemingly confirmed! Not in the way you described though; it's Rachel, not Kokonoe, who helps her regain the Mu-12 form. And no Idea Engine either.

Carl has the potential to become an Observer.

That's why he can remember some of the alternate time loops from CT so well, and why Rachel seems to have such interest in him. But the path he has chosen himself and his refusal to let go of any ties to his past like Ada makes it impossible for him to reach this potential. It's also the real reason as to why Relius tried to kill him.

They do sound pretty similar, especially in the piano which is basically the same melody with different notes, but the major difference is that the BlazBlue version is a lot less creepy.

After the third game, Rachel and Valkenhayn will be revealed as villains

Taokaka's joke endings have proven that it is a tool for "Funny Aneurysm" Moment, or at least alignment switching tools for those designated as villains. Jin and Litchi appeared as "villains" in her CT joke end, and guess what? In CS, Jin had a Heel–Face Turn, while Litchi had a Face–Heel Turn. Now, in CS, the "villains" for Tao's Gag Reels are apparently Rachel and Valkenhayn (and they're obviously good in canon). Who's to say that after Terumi is beaten, Rachel and Valkenhayn will reveal their true cards and their own nefarious plans, but couldn't get it rolling because they have to take care of Terumi first?

Or alternatively, THIS will happen to Rachel in the end of the next BB.

Jossed. The true villain is Izanami, the goddess of death that is possessing Saya. Rachel is trying to prevent her from destroying Amaterasu, thus preventing the deletion of history's "backup file", so to speak.

Members of the Kaka clan skyrocket in intelligence at a certain age.

This would explain a lot, and it would be quite interesting to see a Taokaka who's more mature and intelligent yet still having hints of her eccentric charm.

Or, alternatively, the brainy ones just ate a metric asskilo of Silvervine Candy.

Valkenhayn had a hand in the Murakumo Units.

The basis for this is because he and one of the researchers sound, and◊look somewhat similar. Perhaps his "going way back" with Terumi extends to more than just the Six Heroes.

Probably Jossed. The younger Valkenhayn's appearance doesn't match up with the researcher shown, and the first Prime Field Device was created by Relius and Shuichiro Ayatsuki (Nine and Celica's dad) at Terumi's behest. Valkenhayn does additionally have history with Relius, but that's an antagonistic one.

The Ikaruga War was started to create Nirvana.

In Tager's Continuum Shift ending he has a flashback to when he was in the Ikaruga War, and talks about how the Nox Nyctores were used for something. Add that to something Arakune says about Nirvana his own story and the statement Hazama makes that the Nox Nyctores required thousands of human souls to be made. If this is so, perhaps Ada is like a "focus point" around which all these souls center?

Given Noel's backstory in the Calamity Trigger story opening cutscene, it was more likely started to create the newest Nox: Murakumo.

The sequel will have six new characters

This is not counting Makoto, Valkenhayn, and Trinity, who will all return as standard characters. They'll be Saya, Tenjo's son, Kokonoe, Jubei, Relius and Nine (the true identity of Phantom). Saya will be the FINAL Boss. Tenjo's son and Nine will be DLC. Saya will only be playable on the home version.
The new music themes will be:
Relius vs. Carl,
Kokonoe vs. Hazama,
Jubei vs. Haku-men,
Saya vs. Ragna,
Saya vs. Jin and
Tenjo vs. Bang

You missed whatever will replace Nu. Granted, that's not so much a new character...

So far, we have Amane, Bullet, Azrael, Izayoi, Kagura, Terumi (DLC), and Kokonoe (DLC) with the Imperator as an Assist Character for Take-Mikazuchi. Jubei remains an NPC despite Ragna joking about how he needs to whip out Musashi in the next game and his last appearance in the story had him on the receiving end of a vicious beating from his wife. Homura, Tenjo's son, will likely stay an NPC, since he's the new Imperator of the NOL after Saya/Izanami willingly relinquished the title. Nine/Phantom and Saya/Izanami have a good chance for making the roster in the next game, updates to Chronophantasma notwithstanding. Jubei, too, provided he survives Phantom's onslaught. No new rivalry themes from that list either (discounting "X-MATIC" for Carl vs. Relius, since Relius made it into CS Extend).

Their plan is to have Litchi join NOL then go to Ikaruga. But then, that would mean leaving Kagutsuchi and Arakune alone, and then without Litchi keeping tabs on him, he's free to consume many people. So, Relius took it to his hands to capture Arakune and store it with NOL so it doesn't consume people, saving the lives of thousands of innocents.

We can only wish. Relius captured Arakune so that Terumi could use him as a bargaining chip over Litchi, and then later modified Arakune to serve their schemes.

But at least that means he still does Kagutsuchi a favor... unintentionally.

In some iterations of the time loop, Arakune is thrown back into the past and pops out a century earlier than the Black Beast.

Where, in the early 21st century, where none of the relevant plot points have happened yet and our real world is still trucking along, we know him as the Slender Man.

In the third game, or however they end the story, Makoto will defeat the Big Bads.

Bloodedge Ragna from Phase 0 will be a secret character in the sequel.

If we had Order-Sol in Guilty Gear, then I'm not surprised, thanks to the time loop shenanigans, that Bloodedge Ragna will appear and meet the current timeline Ragna. Hell, it could be a crowning moment of awesome if that happens!

Or, Bloodedge Ragna will be the exact same Ragna, just without BlazBlue. Near the end of Continuum Shift's sequel, Ragna will lose his grimoire and learn that he is still powerful with only one working arm and eye and using only his sword. He then beats the crap out of the sequel's boss and prove how dangerous he can be as a Badass Normal. If the that game has a sequel, then the opposite will happen and Ragna gets his grimoire back at the end.

Um, "Bloodedge Ragna" not only is Ragna, he also is Ragna in the third game who went to the past and then goes back to the present time. Their powerset should be similar as well.

The latest version of Nu in the third game will be...

Omega-24!

Cause Lambda-11+Nu-13 = Omega-24!

Bonus points if she does a Heel–Face Turn. More bonus points if she teams up with Noel as Super Mode Mu-12 against Saya (since 12 is 24/2).

Jossed. It's a regenerated Nu, now serving the villains as the Sword of Izanami/Hades. In fact, she ends up fighting for Saya (or rather, Izanami) against Noel/Mu-12.

Well, duh. But I guess this needs clarification. Litchi gained some power from being exposed to the boundary - that is to draw power from their alternate universe selves. Being exposed to the Boundary, however, leaves one in a state of decay. Just ask Arakune! Litchi will eventually rot and decay. Now, guess who conveniently has the Nox Nyctores necessary to rip the Boundary a new one?

This is actually possibly lampshaded in a blink-or-miss even dating back on CT, in Bang's story. After beating Tager, Bang left and Tager was actually impressed with his optimism, and thought that he could be the one to save Litchi from... something. Considering this something would be said decay as well as obsession with Arakune, then yes, Tager may be right.

He doesn't. And seeing Litchi and Carl working with Relius (even if it's a temporary alliance) mortifies Bang.

Hakumen keeps saying that he is Hakumen because part of him still feels like Jin.

It's some sort of affirmation; the more you repeat it the more likely you'll believe it to be true. Especially how Continuum Shift shows that he still feels something for Tsubaki.

[[spoiler: He's controlling Saya by torturing her with his incessant barking. This will be revealed in the third game.

Jossed as we find it's actually Izanami.

The reason behind Jin's hatred with Saya is...

Chronicled in Wheel of Fortune. Original Jin saw Tsubaki dead by the hands of Nu in cold blood. This breeds Jin's extreme hatred to Nu. And then, time loop occurs, and when Jin was little, memories of him hating Nu started to manifest, causing him to dislike Saya, who was the template of Nu and looked like her, and gets amped into real hate when Ragna gave her more attention. Basically, Jin's hatred to Noel and Saya was based on the fact that they looked like the person from the previous timelines that killed his beloved.

Also Izanami is possessing Saya so it could be another reason for why Saya got sick and why Jin subsequently started hating her.

That's assuming Saya had been possessed by Izanami since childhood and not just after Terumi abducted her. But seeing as Jin was knowledgeable about Izanami's deathly presence before almost everyone else on the heroes' side, you may be on to something.

Actually Hakumen and the Six Heroes were losing and could only run away from the Black Beast. But then, it happened and the Black Beast perished and Hakumen took credit. History never knew that the Black Beast's full name is the "LegendaryBlack Beastof AAAAAAUUUUGGGHHH!"

By the end of the series, Jin will overtake Hakumen in strength.

In the third game, the bad guys will use the Power of Order against Jin somehow...

But Noel will stop them, saving Jin from his fate and fulfilling her promise to Jubei.

My guess is that Jin will get maimed by Tsubaki due to a moment of hesitation and Noel will save him.

Jossed. Interestingly, though, Jin does get maimed by Izayoi's Immortal Breaker... But he survived thanks to the very Power of Order.

Once Rachel finds out Terumi is alive because of all the hate he's directed towards him, she will find a way to modify the glasses to affect everyone in the world, regardless of gender. She will then place them on Terumi, who will then be ripped apart by a colossal swarm of loving fangirls and fanboys, never to return.

As much as I find this to be hilariously awesome, this is jossed. Hakumen slays him with a special technique that erases him from traces of time.

As more people learned about the Slender Man Mythos and feared him, the Slender Man grew powerful to the point where he became alive and sentient. The first thing he did was wander around his homeworld, the internet, first around Something Awful, then to websites, such as YouTube, Twitter, and even here at TV Tropes, where the Slender Man was introduced. Over time, he discovered the art of trolling, and became one himself. The hatred directed at him grew and grew, until finally the Slender Man, now in the guise of Yuuki Terumi, was able to leave the internet and wreck havoc on the offline world.

Litchi will have to be revealed to have a past similar to Shirou Emiya

Which might explain why she is kind to everyone and put everyone else's (That she knows) well being in before her own including her own morality and the sides she choose. She probably will have a past revealed that she is some sort of Sole Survivor on her own hometown being massacred, adopted with a kind family and defines with the virtue of "saving everyone before self", in which she doesn't mind afflicting herself with the Boundary if she can save Arakune, she thinks she herself is worthless, being a Sole Survivor. Of course, this is a darker take, as in"'What if Shirou went through Unlimited Blade Works while disregarding Archer's warnings."

Ragna is the only one who can hear Nu's Yandere side - to everyone else she sounds emotionless

The only time we've seen her act like this without Ragna present was in Continuum Shift where Arakune entered Ragna's memories... and heard Nu speaking with two voices at once - one emotionless ("Loading.") and one Yandere ("Yay Ragna!").

Maybe she's selective.

Ragna isn't limited to channeling his Azure power to just his right arm.

Just because the BlazBlue is his right arm doesn't mean he can't use the power of azure throughout his body and sword. That just means his right arm is the easiest to use. Hell's Fang and its follow-up require both arms. Gauntlet Hades' follow-up uses his foot. When Ragna saves Noel, the animation wasn't Gonzoed, that's just him using his left arm to channel power instead of his right.

This is canon. The animation didn't screw up.

The reason why Phoenix: Rettenjou was inactive for the long time is due to how much of a Crapsack World the current world is.

With Black and Gray Morality and such. Phoenix: Rettenjou is a weapon that thrives on idealism and such, and so it found the home at the most "idealistic" character: Bang. But due to him being put as a Joke Character, ridiculed, and the world just likes being cynical, the Nox got pissed. It went into a slumber, until it felt like it's time to bring forth idealism to the world. If Bang could spread idealism throughout the Crapsack World, and things are starting to look up, the Phoenix: Rettenjou would activate.

Jossed. Few people knew how to activate Rettenjo, and even for those who did, most of them saw its use and that of Kushinada's Lynchpin by proxy as something that not even the crossing of a Godzilla Threshold could justify.

The 3 Siblings/Protagonists (Ragna, Jin and Noel) will have their own opposing Antagonistic Rivals within the Novus Orbis Librarium.

Granted, we already have Ragna VS Hazama/Terumi and Noel VS Tsubaki. In the next sequel, we will be having Jin VS Saya.

In order to have absolute order in the world, only one person of the same genre will have to exist. And since Hakumen is still Jin, only either of them will have to exist in the current timeline. And it is highly unlikely that we will see the "Original" dying instead of the "Alternate" now, would it?

Oh, he may die, but you can guarantee he'll go down in a badass manner, taking his opponent with him with a special as-of-yet unrevealed technique.

It's unlikely that the series will have the world gain absolute order since order is implied to be a bad thing going by what Rachel told Ragna.

There is an opposing energy called Crimson.

To go along with the Crimson Grimoire theory above and as a result of Law of Conservation of Detail. Why did Noel's other gun stream red when the other was streaming blue? You could say design choice but you could argue that because the limiters placed on Noel by Bolverk were being released, then that was Azure energy. The red gun then seemed be releasing a different energy, crimson energy. Plus, I'm a sucker for yin-yang concepts.

Lambda is still alive.

There is one overlooked plothole. Sure, Ragna saw Lambda dying, but who's to say that it was only a replica? Lambda's True End ends with her encountering Relius and he seemed interested in taking her in. If he has shown interest, it kinda makes no sense that he suddenly lets her go. My guess is that Relius created a copy of her, transferred the Idea Engine to the copy and sent the copy out to Ragna/Terumi. The real Lambda might still be held within Relius' lab.

One problem: Lambda clearly had Nu's soul when she saved Ragna. How would Relius copy that? Plus there's no reason to keep Lambda around when they're already bringing Nu back.

Solution to that: Relius put the Nu's soul in the Lambda replica, which would be slain by Terumi. The real body of Lambda is stored somewhere within the NOL base, probably with no soul until Relius can pick up one unfortunate soul to plug into Lambda's body. Yes, Relius seems to be something of the equivalent of A Wizard Did It.

Lambda is announced to be playable in CPEX. As for how she came back, though, no one has given any explanation yet.

Terumi is actually gay.

The reason why Terumi makes Mu wear such a skimpy outfit is because he's uncomfortable with his sexuality, also no straight guy says "toodles", even as a joke. YOU KNOW I'M RIGHT.

Next sequel, the Litchi vs Arakune theme will be titled "Executioner" rather than "Weak Executioner."

The reason why it's called "Weak Executioner" refers to just how weak-willed Litchi is in terms of slaying Arakune because she still loved her thus she couldn't fulfill her duty as Arakune's executioner. After Continuum Shift, provided that Litchi receives Character Development to not only think about Arakune only, she will be able to fulfill her destiny to give Arakune a well-deserved rest without even doubting anything, thus her song title evolves, in a sense that she's no longer a weak executioner.

It's still "Weak Executioner" in CP (well, "Weak Executioner II"). They could possibly add a subtitle to achieve the same effect (assuming the next game doesn't just reshuffle the deck and give everyone new themes like Guilty Gear Xrd did), but judging by ASW's previous song titling conventions, it doesn't look like they're going to rename the song by dropping "Weak" from the title. Besides, Litchi has yet to get over Arakune, though she does see the harm her actions are causing for others and is portrayed in a sympathetic light throughout the story.

Mori's plan to make Carl the 4th Protagonist goes along with the current boom of Miyuki Sawashiro.

As of current, Miyuki Sawashiro has gotten a bit more popular and got many leading roles here and there. Then Mori realized, "I only made her play a sub character!!" So in order to promote her, he made Carl much and more prominent so eventually, by the next BB, Carl becomes a prominent and possibly main protagonist, thus BB becomes yet another series who follows the current hype of "Miyuki Sawashiro being a lead." In other words, "Sorry I made you play a sub character, Miyuki."

Better luck next time, Carl. The kid's going to have to outdo quite a few characters if he wants that tetragonist status come the fourth game.

BANG'S NAIL IS THE NAIL THAT SHALL PIERCE THE BOUNDARY!!

All the hints about him allude to it's ability to "cut people off from the boundary." Therefore his new Astral Finish will be a Shout Out to Giga Drill Breaker.

No new Astral Finish, though he does receive a new Distortion Drive in CP (Shishigami-style Secret Technique: "Hurricane Fury") that, while in Overdrive, ends with Bang jamming the nail through his grounded opponent.

Everyone seems to forget that every Nox Nyctores have side effects on the user. Bang may possess the Phoenix: Rettenjou, but he doesn't know how to use it, which means, the Nox hasn't been giving side-effects on him. Now... what do you think the side effect of Phoenix: Rettenjou is? Quite possibly, it grants him immortality like a Phoenix. Instead of being an awesome thing to use, Bang will suffer Who Wants to Live Forever? as he sees justice constantly being trashed by Hazama, the world becoming more and more of a Crapsack World as cynicism constantly prevails over his idealism and Litchi betraying him with her previous Face–Heel Turn and would never win her love... and he couldn't do a thing. Doomed with such life, Bang will eventually had enough and conduct Immortality Immorality and become a Fallen Hero.

Alternatively, since every Nox Nyctores took away something of the user, Phoenix: Rettenjou is no exception. It takes away Bang's sense of morality, turning him into an amoral Knight Templar. He could snap this way if he learns that Litchi did a Face–Heel Turn only for Arakune, completely trashing his image of her and his love to her, this becoming his Freudian Excuse to eventually jump off the slippery slope, combined with the sacrifice of using Phoenix Rettenjou.

Technically not jossed yet, but something gets in the way of this: the Rettenjou is now being used to activate Kushinada Lynchpin. Now it is the question of whether the lynchpin will still be active if the Rettenjou is unplugged or not, or, if it can't be unplugged at all, then how Bang will fight without it in the next game.

Therefore, it will be nearly too possible that once she gets what she wants, she will get out and return to the side of good (not necessarily returning to Sector Seven or joining Ragna, but she just quits) rather than being intoxicated with NOL's/Terumi's evilness and jumps off the slippery slope.

If Terumi/Relius don't have a hand in handling that, that is.

Might have a chance for being true, that as Chronophantasma, she hasn't degraded into "I don't care about anything else except Arakune's cure!" and in fact still civil. Which in turns, brings forth this new theory to support this: In EXTEND Platinum's story, Jubei visits her, and after Platinum left, Jubei spoke of how Bang is going to be his "secret weapon" of sorts. What can be implied from here: Jubei supports her to go into the NOL and pretend like she's helping Terumi, while in truth, she's also there to motivate Bang into mastering the Phoenix: Rettenjou and probably use her and Arakune as a "testing ground" for his training of using the Nox Nyctores. Not to mention, probably Jubei knew that Litchi herself is like a Wild Card in NOL employment that probably won't stay long and with the incoming problems Terumi and Relius have, they may have trouble in allocating the time for keeping her there and the incoming problems coming from various directions. After all, there is something of a Sun Tzu saying about "To deceive your enemy, you must first deceive your allies.", which looks pretty fitting considering Litchi's Chinese design. Jubei, you Magnificent Bastard! note Would continue with "I read your book!" but Jubei doesn't author things.

What actually happens in the third game makes it rather... complicated, but to sum it up, she doesn't exactly go back to the "good side", she retained her composure, and she's more in a "neutral" faction as of the end.

Terumi had a hand in creation of Nox Nyctores... by influencing Nine.

Recall how Nox Nyctores was created. It involves a sacrifice of many human souls. Nine at first did not know what to do about beating Black Beast, but Terumi, being the creator of the Black Beast, knew its weakness... the creation of Nox Nyctores. So he influenced Nine, the one with greatest mastery with magic, to create the Nox Nyctores, which could only be possible with the combo of Terumi's knowledge and Nine's magic. Without a choice, Nine sacrificed humans to create the weapon to counter the Black Beast, and it succeeded. People die, but humanity's survival is ensured at cost of the stain at Nine's hands.

Jossed. Supplemental material reveals Nine created the Nox Nyctores, and did so using human transmutation. A very Terumi thing to do, but he had no hand in it.

Debatable. There could be some things that history twisted, such as how in truth Hakumen was making a Heroic Sacrifice to seal Terumi in the Boundary, instead of getting tossed by the humans for lecturing them. As of Nine, she did possess the knowledge of human transmutation to create the Nox Nyctores, but still very possible that she was VERY reluctant to do so. This is where Terumi comes in. If he had no hand in its creation, then he had MOUTH to its creation. He could as well influence Nine, telling her that human transmutation is the only way to go to save humanity, thus Nine stains her hand to do so with her own choice, believing that it's for the greater good. History may say that Terumi is not involved in its creation, but he could've been influencing it and that part was not mentioned in history like the truth of his sealing by Hakumen.

We see the info directly from the novels (and not just some "exposition" like that Hakumen blurb), so it isn't lying. Indeed, Nine did the morally questionable thing just so she can save one person (her own sister) from certain death, even if she's meant to sacrifice herself to help humanity. But then it is said that she only takes souls from warriors that have already fallen in the battlefield, and after the war she plans on releasing those souls, claiming that they've done their job. And no, Terumi had been brainwashed by Nine before she started the Nox project.

Jin will be the main character in the third game, alongside with Bang.

One game for each sibling, the fact that he got better during Continuum Shift helps. And he will become "The Hero of Ikaruga", but this time in the truest sense.

While CP is mainly a continued case of "Ragna & Friends", make no mistake: Jin's desire to save Tsubaki from the NOL is given a good deal of focus, and while he's still no saint (unless it's in matters concerning Tsubaki), he does continue to move further up on the morality scale. The ending does set up Jin and Tsubaki as two of the most important players in the next game, but Jin's currently incapacitated until further notice.

Saya is actually the original Anti Sankashin Core Unit, aka Alpha-1.

Think about it, Saya was kidnapped by Terumi 10-ish years prior, yet there have been 13 core units and number 12 was a involved with the destruction of Ibukido 5 years before the main story. The timeline just doesn't make sense, unless she's actually much much older. My theory is that Saya is actually 100-ish years old and was created by Terumi himself. The story states the first core unit was locked in the Boundary due to fear from it possessing the "Eye." Now what if sometime after the Black Beast was defeated she emerged from the Boundary and due to its memory erasing effects had lost all of her memories. Jubei or Rachel found her at this point and realizing what she was took her to the church so she would be hidden from Terumi or anyone else seeking to use her. Saya's face/heel turn off-screen wasn't because Terumi mind-raped her, it was because he restored her memories of being tortured by scientists and then locked in the Boundary for 80-90 years. This theory also explains how Saya possessed Yukianesa, it was her version of the Murakumo.

The Murakumo Units only start from the Boundary Field Prime Device numbers 11 through 13; numbers 1 and 10 are simple exploration units made by different companies and not human weapons. Alpha-1 in particular is mentioned to be dead.

Nu-13 or Tsubaki will be the main heroine of BlazBlue 3

Noel's story is effectively over, whereas Nu has just completed a Redemption Equals Death heel/face turn and will most likely be in need of saving thanks to now being in the possession of Relius Clover. Tsubaki has been built up for two games now and Jin seems to have realized that at the very least he does care about her... also delicious irony in the fact that Tsubaki would be stealing Noel's spot as the main heroine.

Jossed. However, while Nu-13 remains under the Imperator's control, it looks like Tsubaki's poised to bump up to first-tier in terms of story importance.

Carl is a clone of Relius.

Relius is designed with a mask for the reveal that both have the same face.

This may very well hold water due to the fact that Relius is over 100 years old.

It could also be that Relius settled down with a family for the sole purpose of experimenting on them. He's depraved enough for that kind of thing.

Technically he's still around 30, just that during an incident with the Black Beast, he accidentally jumped into the future. That may not disprove this theory, though.

Nirvana is controlling Carl by pretending to be his sister.

Many times in Carl's story and arcade modes Nirvana is seen reacting to people Carl has never met such as Valkenhayn and Terumi. In addition, every character aligned with Sector Seven has told Carl that the Nirvana unit is dangerous, perhaps with a manipulative nature being the reason. Its reasoning for protecting Carl are possibly explained by Hakumen in Carl's CT arcade story - citing that Nirvana is fueled by Carl's blood lust. This is something easy to come by with someone like Carl, given his past. All that was explained in the creation/awakening of both Nirvana and Ignis is that a human body is used in the process. The fact that Nirvana is known to many characters far older than Carl suggests it has been around for a while, not newly created from Ada like Ignis was. Ignis is also apparently not sentient and only follows Relius's orders. Nirvana is known to act on its own, attacking Ranga, Hazama, and almost attacking Valkenhayn. Also, many of the people Carl fight is provoked by Nirvana explaining to him that he/she is dangerous, causing him to lash out with almost no other provocation. This makes it seem as if Carl is acting at least partially on Nirvana's influence to further its own goals as well as aiding Carl's to keep him on its side. Once Relius is done with, Nirvana may decide to attempt to break Carl's already damaged mind and take partial control over him in a manner similar to what Yukianesa did to Jin, if this is already not being done.

Not technically jossing this, but Nirvana does contain Ada's soul. It still may play some influence on him.

Otherwise, how it would explain suddenly Ragna developing Angst? What Angst? on The Reveal about Saya gave Jin the Yukianesa. He would normally pique that a little more than suddenly treating it like "Cool story, bro", they both reveal that in-between the Time Skip. Also, a Time Skip would explain why Noel and Makoto did not develop any semblance of Angst after Tsubaki, the last one of the usual trio, still stuck with NOL and Hazama while they're in Sector Seven at the end of True Ending (they would deal with their angst in that Time Skip).

In other words, there may be an extra storyline regarding on whatever happened in-between "Battle against Mu-12" and "Journey to Ikaruga."

Relius' ultimate plan is...

An evolution for humanity. He sought perfection, but has no regards on human lives. Because in his eyes, humans are not perfect thus currently, they are only useful as his guinea pigs. Therefore, he's trying to develop things that would eliminate the current human race, and create "perfect" beings like he is currently, or Ignis. Once he's gotten a hold of that, he will drop the contamination to the world, ensuringCOMPLETE.GLOBAL. SATURATION.

Seemingly confirmed! In Chronophantasma, Relius reveals that he desires to remove Amaterasu and Izanami from the picture so that he can become the architect of a new world recreated to his liking, one where humanity's evolution will not be stagnated by the infinite repetitions of time itself, doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

Makoto knows a surprising amount of what's REALLY going on, and her loyalty is to Noel first and foremost, before anything or anyone else.

The name of her theme is "Alexandrite." That is the name of a unique, natural gemstone that reflects one color under natural sunlight, and a completely different color under artificial light; artificial stones will reflect even mode shades under different kinds and shades of light. Perhaps the theme-song's name hearkens to her role as a double-agent? But her cover is blown now, before her music ever got to play in a story-mode battle. Why hearken back to it?

In fact, in the first place, why is she betraying the NOL to work with Sector Seven? Her stated reason for joining the NOL was to recieve financial support for her large family; apparently she must care for them a lot. But just as Noel's parents needed to be hidden from the NOL's wrath, Makoto's family will now need to be hidden, and a large family of squirrel-people isn't going to be easy to hide. If they were the reason she joined the NOL, why put them all in that kind of danger?

Also, is Makoto any more loyal to Sector Seven than she was to the Libarium? She already turned traitor to one organization; why not another? In fact, Makoto warned Tager that if he hurt Noel, she would kill him. Killing Tager would make her an enemy of Kokonoe and all of Sector Seven. And Makoto NEEDS Sector Seven's help, since by that time she had already betrayed the NOL. But she was willing to become marked for death by the world's only two superpowers, dooming her family along with her. Why? Because Noel is THAT important to her, apparently.

Noel is not only the heir to the True Azure, but she also became the heir to (or at least the Eye of) the Master Unit, Amaterasu; the Sankishin named after a sun goddess. If Makoto is the alexandrite gemstone, then perhaps Noel is the sun that brings out﻿ Makoto's true colors? No one else gets Makoto's real color — she will betray and play both the NOL and S7 against each other, just to protect Noel.

When Tager asked Makoto why she was betraying the NOL, she told him that she thought it would be sad if someone cloned a T-Rex, since the beast would be born into a hostile world where it could not live in peace. But she wasn't really talking about the dinosaur, she was talking about the Murakumo Units. Living people created only to be tools, and heartlessly abused.

Recall Lambda's "Joke" End, which was dead serious, not even remotely funny. Just as Makoto sought out and found Noel outside the city in Noel's Story Mode, Makoto found Lambda when she left the city on foot. Makoto probably sought her out, too. Even if she ran across Lambda only by accident, she is completely unsurprised and unthreatened by Lambda's threatening armored appearance, and goes out of her way to befriend Lambda. Makoto knows exactly what the Murakumo units are, and that Noel is one of them. Maybe that's why Makoto seeks to protect Noel... but maybe it's the other way around, and Noel in specific is the reason that Makoto is sympathetic to the Murakumo in general.

Makoto is based on Ratatoskr, the squirrel of Norse Mythology who ran up and down the World Tree (which is depicted in her magical symbol), who listened to the wisdom of the eagle at the top (also depicted in her symbol), and who used that knowledge as ammunition to taunt and needle Nidhogg, the serpent who chewed endlessly on one of the Tree's roots. Makoto is a squirrel-girl who worked in the Intelligence department of the organization that runs the world, and her greatest enemy is Terumi, who has an evil-serpent-monster theme. Maybe the eagle will be represented by a specific character later, whom proves to be Makoto's real boss (the Master Unit?), or maybe the eagle is just the Intelligence Department itself and she learned everything she knows on her own. Either way, she's working to thwart Terumi, and she, rather than Kokonoe, will probably be the one to do it, even if she isn't the one who actually kills him.

Alternately, there's this illustration◊ from Extend. This opens the possibility that Rachel, Valkenhayn and Jubei are her Hresvelgr (notice how the Tsukuyomi resembles a bird when active, like when Take-Mikazuchi opened fire?).

Ragna's Blood-Scythe is a Sankishin Unit

Ragna's blade would appear to be another Ars Magus, but it was in the hands of the Bloodedge, the hero who held off the Black beast for a year on his own, with only one arm and blind in one eye, thus it was made before the Ars Magus were developed. Since it appears to be partially magical and mechanical specifically when he uses Black Onslaught, it must be a very powerful artifact. And before anyone pulls the it was a weapon from a previous Ragna, he got it from Jubei who received it from the First Bloodedge.

Except for the fact that Sankishin means THREE Shining Gods and we already know all three Sankishin Units. Also the "First Bloodedge" WAS Ragna. And he didn't hold off the Beast for a year, he put it into a coma for a year by allowing himself to be eaten.

To the first poster, the Blood-Scythe can't be a Sankishin Unit. The Amaterasu Unit, the Master Unit, is somewhere inside the Boundary and, in order to combat Takamagahara's interventions, is eventually pulled out of the Boundary in CP, Hakumen is currently inside of the Susano'o Unit, and Rachel has the Tsukuyomi Unit. The weapon's origins are unknown, although it's likely that Bloodedge created it himself, creating a Stable Time Loop of the weapon being constantly being handed back down to himself (i.e. Ragna) in subsequent time loops (of course, the fact that Ragna had his sword and jacket when he ended up being flung back in time implies that he had it in the original timeline as well, which opens up more questions about how exactly he obtained them). To the second, that's indeed how Phase 0 describes Ragna/Bloodedge's death, but that also directly contradicts what Jubei outright says in CS about Bloodedge fighting the Beast and stalling it for an entire year to give the Six Heroes time to teach humans how to use Ars Magus, then letting himself die when Jubei clearly implies he could've fought much longer. There's no reason to doubt Jubei (i.e. Unreliable Expositor) since Jubei was there to witness Bloodedge's last moments, but the fact remains that the two tales aren't exactly the same. My guess: time loops. We already have evidence that events change (sometimes slightly, sometimes not) over the timelines (for example, Hakumen being in the Susano'o Unit instead of Hazama and joining the Six Heroes or the entire Wheel of Fortune drama CD when compared to the current timeline) and Phase 0 would appear to be the one of the earlier time loops (if not the first), so it's not implausible that multiple time loops would corrupt what Phase 0 reveals into what Jubei disclosed.

Of course, Chronophantasma comes along and shows Ragna diving into the belly of the beast to quell its destruction, affirming the Phase 0 version of events. Thus, the question is: is the revisionist history in-universe or out?

But then he jumps back out exactly a year after. And then he goes back to his own timeline.

Phantom is actually Celica.

This canon is screwed up. No one would expect it. Plus, she's been a big focus in the light novels and there's yet to be any mention of what happened to her body after the church incident, so... who knows?

Jossed, her sister Konoe/Nine is Phantom.

Bang is a Nox Nyctores

Specifically Bang is Phoenix: Rettenjou!

Jossed. His nail is Rettenjo, and said nail houses the soul of Lord Tenjo.

Saya is actually Alpha-1, the original Murakumo Unit

She was used as a template for the rest of the Murakumo units. By "template" they probably mean she was the first to be converted into one. She lost her soul in the process, turning her into an emotionless doll. When she went into the boundary, she regained her soul. She was then sealed back by Hazama and Relius, unbeknownst to her. All the events leading up to this eventually broke her, and she decided that humanity wasn't worth it and upon being salvaged by Hazama and Relius, was made Imperator and now has them as her underlings, not knowing the truth.

Alpha-1 is stated to be dead. Not to mention there's a 0th Boundary Prime Field Device.

In other words, Hazama and Relius' downfall would be because they didn't pay enough attention to Bang. Hazama only acknowledged Bang being more tricky than his "comic relief" self does, but he failed to realize that Bang has the Phoenix: Rettenjou. Bang is also never in the account of Hazama's backup plan after backup plan after backup plan, all his plans hinges more on Ragna, Jin, Noel, Rachel and the remaining Six Heroes. Thus, Bang will be an unexpected element that will crumble Hazama's well built plan by just being there. The true definition of Spanner in the Works.

Relius is well aware that Bang has Rettenjo, though, unlike his Arcade Route, he doesn't move to take it out of Bang's hands. Naturally, Bang manages to pull through and activate the Nox when the heroes need its powers, although this does little to deter Izanami's plans.

This is the reason why he goads Litchi into NOL, or exactly, why he needed her research on Seithr manipulation. The World Tree may be hidden within the Boundary throughout lots of Seithr and Hazama plans to manipulate it. He still needed Litchi even if he already possessed her unpublished work because Litchi might've had knowledge about the World Tree, since her staff is made out of the oak of the tree. For whatever plans, unknown, perhaps the so-called Sword of Imperator/Izanami he mentioned at True End doesn't require just Nu, it also needs some component from the World Tree. Let's have it this way: Since when Hazama merely have single-minded goal? Therefore, there must be some sort of goal behind recruiting Litchi merely for 'Seithr manipulation help', he's the guy who'd use lots of Gambit Pileup after all. Second, when a fiction has a World Tree, when is it that it plays NO role at all?

Is there even ANY World Tree (that I might've missed)?

Phoenix: Rettenjou isn't a good weapon

Could be effective, but it has a use that will be disastrous for the world. All Platinum said is that it has the power to sever the connection to the Boundary, and people take it that Bang will use it to cure Arakune and save Litchi. However, they miss out one thing: "sever connection to the Boundary can also mean that Phoenix: Rettenjou can be used to completely separate the world with the underworld/afterlife (Boundary). Therefore, when people die, they're stuck to Earth and if this continues, in the near future, the world will be filled with ghosts. Platinum's message was not "Use this Nox to save your lover!" but "Be careful about this Nox, or you can end up creating a Ghost World."

Confirmed; it was Tenjo's before it came into Bang's possession. He didn't use it because what would happen if he did would be even worse. He did seal his own soul in it though, so Jin didn't actually kill him as first thought.

Also, Rettenjo is dangerous for other reasons. It doesn't create a ghost world; it, an anti-Nox weapon, is used to activate Kushinada's Lynchpin, which stops the flow of seithr completely. In a world that is almost entirely reliant on seithr. This is why Tenjo didn't use the Nox during the Ikaruga Civil War even though it would have easily turned the tide against the NOL; the price was simply too damn high.

We thought Bang with his over-the-top manner, hammy yells and everything, we thought he's a Highly Visible Ninja. We took things on face value. However, with his increasing values of story importance he's getting, it became clear that Bang is in fact, a true ninja, master of stealth. What stealth, you ask? We were all being treated with the facts that he's a Joke Character and were constantly reminded so. And when we were trying to accept such fact, Bang was instead prepared to be a major player in the eventual BlazBlue universe, and when the time comes, he would surprise everyone with his importance that he has gathered so far while fooling everyone that he's going to be stuck as an ineffectual Joke Character.

Named Joshua Radcliffe. He was beaten by the Ruina, unable to escape Despair Event Horizon by Perfectio and eventually developed a sight of despair. Soon, he became a ghost, a shell of his former self and changed his name into Terumi Yuuki. Thus is one of the many possibilities of Continuum ShiftSuper Robot Wars multiverse.

For starters the Guilty Gear series is less willing to let their villains get away with their evil deeds. (As there are plenty of times in which I-No can attest to that.) Another thing to consider is that the BlazBlue storyline does like to mention that the reason why Hazama hates Rachel because he fears the fact that she is a young vampire whom has the potential to truly defeat him, think about how he would fare against an old pro like Slayer?

That's if Hazama suddenly got transferred from NOL to That Man's group. Different group, different policy. Also there's the fact that Sol is less gullible and more immune to trolling than Ragna. And more broken. So rather than Hazama gloating over, he'll be curb stomped without mercy by Sol.

True but it does make one wonder how beneficial it would be if Hazama ended up working for That Man or not. Because That Man of all people is one of the more prominent reasons why I-No is actually not a Villain Sue. If for some reason That Man ever wanted to stop Hazama's plans for any reason then let's just say there is really nothing Hazama can do about that to put it very mildly.

He will be treated like Hakumen, storywise, in that his injuries will Nerf him a bit but he's still a respectable fighter in general. However, just like Hakumen, "his normal is not everyone else's normal."

Litchi is suffering Fake Memories to make her obsessed with Arakune... designated by Hazama.

If you remember, her Boundary corruption seems to deal with jumbling her memories. In this case, her corruption has been on the stage since before CT on why she left Sector Seven, the corruption gave her Fake Memories that Lotte Carmine is a wonderful Marty Stu that can do no wrong, when extra stories such as her Short Story gives us the fact that both Lotte and Litchi distanced themselves after he lashed out at her, and that Lotte himself has been shown as not really wonderful if his interactions with Kokonoe in various flashbacks and EX Story in Continuum Shift II has shown (he might've been a Green-Eyed Monster with serious inferiority complex to everyone he comes across). When Lotte became Arakune, Litchi investigated a little, and was corrupted a bit, and originally wanted to heed Kokonoe's words that it's too dangerous and not worth her time. However, that bit of corruption immediately gave her Fake Memories that he's her lover, he's screaming for help, and it's totally her fault for letting him, leading her to continue further her research, leave Sector Seven and ends up in NOL all for his sake. When she interacted with Orient Town people, she gained many people that love her and messed with her corruption, making her think she had to kill him, but in her CT ending, the corruption acted up, restored, making her convinced that she must save him because that's what lovers do.

And this was all designed by Hazama from get-go, on request of Relius. Relius was very impressed by Litchi's research during the EX Story, but she's on Kokonoe's side thus he can't use it. But then, he saw Lotte and his inferiority complex and on research found out their relationship. So he had Hazama eventually try on experimenting Lotte, resulting Arakune. And when Litchi tried tapping to the Boundary, Hazama gave her the Fake Memories corruption to obsess over Lotte, eventually leading her to NOL. This may also be why Litchi was extremely suspicious of Hazama because her corruption might react to him being the originator of the corruption.

And we'll get to know why he has that: Basically, he was suffering some sort of despair. However, other people did not despair for some reason. Terumi got pissed. "I don't wanna be the only one to suffer. I WANNA MAKE EVERYONE SHARE MY SUFFERING, LIKE IT OR NOT!" So off he goes trolling people and making people fall into despair, because in his own opinion, that's the only truth there is. In that regard, he wants to be the God of the World so he can shape it to his own liking, where the only truth is despair and the rest are just lies that he hated. The origin of his excuse was based on real life issues where there are some cancer victims trying to infect his cancer to other unassuming people just so they're not the only one who suffers. Terumi is the same, he can't stand suffering alone.

Impossible. He does things strictly For the Evulz. And plus he tried, and succeeded, in killing a god-like entity.

Exactly the second version. He wants to be the ONLY GOD that manipulates events and the world. For the Evulz is one of the reasons why he wants to be a God: So it lets him do whatever evil he wants and there'll be nobody to oppose him to have his fun of "evil for the heck of it." Terumi is just that good to hide his God Complex, just because he killed a god-like entity doesn't mean he hates becoming one.

Word of God is that Hazama has no redeeming features whatsoever. None. At all. Giving him a Freudian Excuse that would end up humanizing him or making him sympathetic in even the slightest of ways invalidates that.

Not all "villainous excuse" makes one sympathetic you know. Although whatever tale he has before 100 years ago is still unknown.

On a much less serious note, after venturing forth in cooking, gardening, crafting and babysitting, the world's most famous Engrish-accented woman decided to do something a bit less sexist by... announcing a fighting game, apparently.

There will be two more games after Continuum Shift

The third can center on Saya, Tsubaki, Litchi and Kokonoe, while the fourth will finally deal with Terumi and Relius directly.

Yes and no. As thing stand, the fourth game is set to wrap up the BlazBlue story. Tsubaki received some focus, with more to come in the next game judging by the ending. Terumi and Relius, however, have been bumped down from Big Bad Duumvirate status; they were nothing more than pawns to Izanami, the entity using Saya as her host. Terumi even gets killed.

ASW will call in Norio Wakamoto AGAIN to voice whoever is Terumi and Relius' true boss as seen in the Wheel of Fortune

A man so powerful that he fought the Black Beast single-handed without the use of the Azure Grimoire; even if he was originally Ragna himself, Terumi and Relius aren't ones to pass up a chance to at least try to revive Bloodedge through DNA samples, or at least by researching what made Bloodedge so resistant to begin with.

He didn't hold it off for a year by fighting it, he allowed it to eat him which put the Black Beast in a coma for a year.

Terumi is Amaterasu

He just pretends to hate Amaterasu to fool his boss. His actual goal is to free himself from the boundary.

Male Prime Field Devices are modeled after Jin

At the end of Noel's story, Terumi mentioned the existence of male Prime Field Devices, or Noel's "brothers." If female ones are modeled after Saya, male ones might be modeled after Jin. Both were kidnapped at the same time, and both have very high Armagus aptitude.

Does that mean we're going to see the BlazBlue equivalent to Robo-Ky?

Nah, Prime Field Devices have been existed long before Jin and Saya come to being. Saya was only used as the template for 11-13th. Other models were made by different people; there are some chance of some of them being male, but it definitely won't be modeled after Jin.

It's the only thing to explain why he's doing things For the Evulz. If the world is full of messed up things, he practically ensures his existence and eternal fun. This is why he's trying to destroy Master Unit Amaterasu in the past, their world-resetting tendencies may attempt to reset his Playground for Evil if he once succeeded. Hell, if the world is so messed up, he doesn't even need Ragna to hate him. Basically, just get people to ask "who turns this world into this mess?", and be reminded that Terumi did it. They'll hate him and it'll be a steady income of existence for Terumi.

Thus far the source of Ikaruga War in a deeper detail is Bang, who seem to portray that Ikarugans are brave rebels of justice to oppose the tyrannical NOL. However, as BlazBlue doesn't seem to be letting anyone who gets serious and be in story to be 100% Good (such as Litchi), and Bang is getting his own prominence soon, he will be revealed that... like every other War, there were no good side and bad side. The Ikaruga side weren't composed of Chaotic Good ninjas as Bang thought to be. They, including Bang, were pretty much blood-lusted Ax-Crazy ninjas who murder NOL soldiers the same way NOL incriminates them, an eye for an eye to say. They have slowly forgotten the ninja tenets taught by Lord Tenjou, or the ministers serving Tenjou were fooling them around with promises that they shall be heroes, but in turn, they view NOL soldiers, who are just as human as they are... to be devils that needs to be slaughtered in the name of justice and they went mad in killing them. Bang, however, did see Jin killing Lord Tenjou and in that moment, he starts remembering most of the teachings Tenjou did to him. When Ikaruga citizens moved to Ronin-Gai, to atone for his sins, Bang tried his best to lift the spirits of the survivors and next generation will move on from the bloody past. Thus Bang had to made up the past to be told to the children, that he's a hero of justice fighting for the evils of NOL and the Ikaruga Federation and their ninjas are honorable rebels rather than Ax-Crazy ninja, so the children can have people to look up into.

This, however, is also possibly why Phoenix: Rettenjou remained inactive in Bang's hand. Bang tried to cover his sins with another sin of lie, and it's a big one since he pretty much spread his lies to his kinsmen. This may end up as a possible double-edged sword for Bang because Nox Nyctores are Evil Weapon by nature so when it awake, it may feed on Bang's sense of justice, possibly reverting him back to his Ax-Crazy ninja self.

If the few flashbacks of Bang's involvement in the war are anything to go by, Bang's always been, well, Bang, so consider this one Jossed. Similarly, the Ikaruga Federation really were the good guys during the Ikaruga Civil War, seeing as Lord Tenjo was the real Imperator of the NOL, only for Terumi to somehow reverse the situation as a coup/rebellion, have Tenjo assassinated, and insert Izanami as the Imperator in Tenjo's place.

Bang will try to cure Arakune.

In a case of I want my beloved to be happy, Bang will try to use his Nox Nyctores to cure Arakune. It's been stated that his Nox can cut connections to the Boundary, and when/if Litchi finds out she will no doubt ask him for his help. He will do as Litchi asks and use his new found powers to cure him, but...

Arakune does not want to be cured

Both Kokonoe and Lotte, in a moment of sanity, say he choose this path. If given the choice, he would get his memories back, but his abilities as Arakune are to valuable to him in his research of the boundary. After Bang cures him, he will begin looking for ways to become Arakune, but keep his sanity. By the time of the fourth game, he will succeed.

Confirmed. Except that he cuts himself lose instead.

Tenjou's son is actually evil/messed up psychologically

This is the world of BlazBlue after all. Either way, Tenjou's son has no implication that he'd be a Generation Xerox of Lord Tenjou, being just and all and revered as a good man. It could be that he is a Green-Eyed Monster on Bang, considering that Bang inherits the Phoenix: Rettenjou and that nail, while he got left with nothing. Or he was captured by NOL and experimented at cost of his sanity. But at any rate, he's probably set up to be Bang's bitter rival more than Jin ever could be, in a more personal level too. Which leads to...

To go off of a fan theory thanks to Chronophantasma, what if Tenjou's son is Amane?

For a kid whose father was killed off in a war so that the NOL could set up a false Imperator, Homura seems to be well-adjusted and well-mannered (being under the watchful eye of Kagura probably helped). He even thanks Bang for everything he's done in the name of Ikaruga.

Next BlazBlue, Bang CAN swipe off the "story protagonist" position from Ragna/Jin/Noel

Featuring him and Tenjou's son as rivals and main characters of the story (and probably Litchi would've taken the 'heroine' spot?). It's not like this notion hasn't been used: Sengoku Basara at first had Tokugawa Ieyasu as a Bratty Half-PintDistressed DudeJoke Character no one takes seriously, but remains a good-hearted man, and come Sengoku Basara 3, he Took a Level in Badass and swipes main protagonist position from poster boys and actual main character Date Masamune, whereas new character Ishida Mitsunari is introduced as his new rival, all while Masamune remains the face of Basara. Bang was a joke throughout CT and CS, but he remains one of the whitest in morality (even after Litchi failed). Who can say that next time, he gets the Ieyasu syndrome (from joke character to serious main character)?

Hazama doesn't hate lies

It was all part of his Trolling. He set up a hammy and convincing speech about how the world is a lie and the only truth there is is despair, but not one bit in his speech says he hates such lie. And even if he did, it is very possible that in the end he just pulls this off, the Troll he is: "You remember that time I said that I hate lies? Well... I Lied." Just to pull our legs after thinking "Oh at least he has one virtue that he never lies... wait, did he just lie to us all the time!? FFFFFFFFFF—!!!" He's baiting us for THAT, and it's a pretty common troll strategy.

Let's look at it, Bang is definitely a superhero parody, while GaoGaiGar is one, in Humongous Mecha form. Bang styles himself "Hammer of Justice." He has a gigantic nail. Part of Goldion Hammer's Hammer Hell Hammer Heaven is stabbing the Zonder with a nail before smacking it with the hammer. So in short, probably when the time comes, Bang will stab his nail to either Arakune/consumed Litchi, and then pulls Lotte/Litchi from the core of the corruption, hence 'separating connection with the Boundary'. And whatever remains of the Boundary will be given the "Hikari ni nare" treatment. When you squint, the process looks similar on how GaoGaiGar uses the Goldion Hammer on a Zonder robot before the core is purified... Bang probably includes both plugging out and purification.

Take-Mikazuchi is Ragna from an alternate timeline.

Well think of the way Rachel speaks to it after she deflected the beam she seams to speak as Take-Mikazuchi is someone very close to her. Also in the latest Extendtrailer we can see for a split second Take-Mikazuchi's front lit up, and it does indeed have a humanoid shape strangely similar to when Ragna was turned into the Black Beast in one of his endings.

Or it looks like that because of all the Nox Nyctores basically having mini-Black Beasts inside of them as Relius explains in Extra Story 2 in CSII. Take-Mikazuchi was the first and was probably too close to the Black Beast hence why they sealed it away.

And it was made by Nine, anyway, without any involvement from Ragna.

Nu-13 was cut by someone wielding Saika while being experimented upon/created.

Saya probably only had normal sisterly feelings for Ragna as a child, but in the process of being forged/uploaded/whatever into a Murakumo unit, someone had Saika on hand and cut her with it For Science!. Instead of Nu becoming Yandere for all mankind, something in the process "only" amplified her feelings for Ragna. Her red eyes are also a symptom of having been Slashed.

Terumi used Yukianesa during the Dark War

Just look at the picture of the Six Heroes. The only Nox that matches Terumi's sword's silhouette is Yukianesa. I suspect that like how the Susanoo unit still contains Terumi's memory, Yukianesa also still contains Terumi's memory. And that it is the reason why Yukianesa tends to steer Jin to do something that benefits Terumi.

Jossed. Terumi still had his knives and Ouroboros back then. As for Yukianesa, it was in the possession of Seven, one of the Ten Saints of the Magic Guild in Ishana and a member of the Kisaragi household. That said, Seven and fellow Saint Eight did conspire with Terumi to create Take-Mikazuchi after Nine dropped the project.

Think about it. Terumi (the spirit, not Hazama) seems to be very like an Eldritch Abomination personally. His motive of For the Evulz sounds very similar to Nyarlathotep. And the fact that he feeds on hatred (and probably sadness), and a worshipper of despair really felt like on how Nyarlathotep is feeding on the negative feelings of humanity. Also, Terumi has Supernatural Gold Eyes similar to any forms Nyarlathotep took.

And when you think about it, the struggle between Rachel and Terumi also bore similarity with the same struggle between Philemon and Nyarlathotep, Rachel/Philemon are bound with the rules as 'observers' thus cannot intervene as much as they want to. Terumi/Nyarlathotep, however, actively intervenes and screws people over in daily basis to make sure he "wins."

Very less likely that in lieu of Wheel of Fortune Drama CD, Saya is being "processed" by Relius into a "vessel of something", thus if anyone's out-eviling those two, it's whatever is being vesseled by Saya. Though not to say that those two can (and probably will) out-evil that thing.

That "something", Izanami, does end up out-eviling Terumi and Relius. She's not a background boss, though (Take-Mikazuchi is, with Izanami controlling it and offering some support). Maybe in the next game?

Platinum the Trinity's body isn't Luna.

Just about everyone assumes the body is Luna's and Sena and Trinity came into it from elsewhere, I propose that it's actually SENA'S body and Luna is the one renting space.

Maybe, maybe not. Amane's Astral (which seems to de-age its victims) appears to cause Platinum to regress into Trinity, so this is either teasing or more fuel for the fire that is the "Platinum really is Trinity" theory.

One of the Teach Me, Miss Litchi! Reloaded short mentioned that Jubei once had both Sena and Luna in his custody. How they became Platinum, though, is unknown.

The next game's protagonist will not be Ragna.

But instead focuses on mysteries of the Ikarugan War, which will demand either Bang or Tenjou's son to take the main protagonist role. Jin may take a little more role as well, but he might not be a main player, but he is still one of the most important character of the verse. Why? There are other games that follow this formula, such as Sengoku Basara (Ieyasu-Mitsunari taking center stage over Masamune-Yukimura), or The King of Fighters during the NESTS saga (K''s Team over Kyo's Team).

CP ended up being Ragna's rodeo for the most part, and some of the mysteries of the war remain unanswered (at least, those not covered by TMML). Now for the next game, there could definitely be someone else taking the main protagonist spot, what with Ragna being forced to go rogue thanks to Izanami.

BlazBlue and Guilty Gear take place in the same multiverse.

If you can decipher Sol's Magi Babble in GG2: Overture, his description of the Backyard being a realm that provides the backbone and reason for the entire world of GG to exist sounds not too unlike this series' description of the Boundary, which is where multiple timelines cross paths and intersect. Notice that Sol explains that the magic of the GG verse temporary accesses the Backyard to draw upon it as a power source, whereas more than a few characters in BB are interested in the power that lies within the Boundary. It is not implausible that the Boundary and the Backyard are but two of many names for the same plane of existence, or at least share some sort of connection. Thus Ishiwatari, Mori, and the rest of the ASW crew have some very reasonable means of creating a crossover between these two series.

Rachel and Valkenhayn will now give more attention to Carl in BlazBlue 3.

In Relius' Story Mode Rachel and Valkenhayn are now showing an interest in taking down Relius (especially Valkenhayn) so if Carl becomes a more prominent character those two will start to pay more attention to him. While Valkenhayn has been making efforts in trying to convince Nirvana that he is not her enemy and Rachel still does have a bit of an interest in Carl let's just say while there is a good possibility they will do more Carl X Rachel ship-tease the idea of Rachel and Valkenhayn aiding Carl against Relius is possible. (In which Relius will of course not approve of the idea of Carl working together with Rachel and will try to make sure that this doesn't happen.) That isn't to say that Ragna will be flat out ignored though (however it might give the Gag Reels another excuse to make him a Butt-Monkey depending on how he feels about Rachel spending more time with Carl than him).

Or conversely Ragna is okay with this and might even be willing to support it (though he will say it's out of hope that Rachel will finally leave him alone) but Hazama will probably be depicted as comically trying to hide his jealousy that Rachel & Valkenhayn are now focusing on Relius than him.

Or this might cause a little rift between Relius and Hazama, as Relius would want to prevent Carl with teaming up with Rachel but Hazama won't take that idea too seriously. But whether that does happen or not Relius and/or Hazama will strike to try to prevent the two from working together only for the two to get closer after said attack.

One of the strongest disadvantages that the good guys had in Continuum Shift is that they were very unorganized and were often at each-other's throats which made things a bit easier for Hazama and Relius. However at the True End of BlazBlue: Continuum Shift the forces of Good were for the most part starting to get a bit more organized in this time Hazama and/or Relius will start to get their comeuppance a bit more often especially in their "bad endings" and possibly their Gag Reels. However keep in mind that doesn't necessarily mean that they suddenly become completely ineffectual but plot won't be quite as willing to ensure their victory this time around.

Further complicating matters for them, the stage is shifting to Ikaruga - and Ibukido with it. While the likes of Ragna and Hakumen remain just as threatening to them as ever, two individuals are more dangerous than previously projected for the sheer potential they possess in screwing matters over. Starting off, we have Bang Shishigami...

Combat: Bang was last seen leaving for Ikaruga so that he may learn of the whereabouts of Lord Tenjou's missing son. Also, since Platinum is in his company, Trinity may provide assistance with tracking down Rettenjou's missing components and/or teaching Bang how to use it. Relius is interested in Kushinada's Device for whatever reason, and Rettenjou is already stated as being able to rend the Boundary and destroy Nox Nyctores; I'm sure the Mad Puppeteer will be less interested after a demonstration gives Ignis a few bugs. Bang has also been seen to know when to hold his ground when possible, and run otherwise rather than constantly charging even at the face of death.

Diplomacy: If there's a resistance movement in Ikaruga - and let's be honest, works like these having an oppressive government usually have one - Bang would likely be the local hero, and would thus be able to organize them into a more efficient fighting force. With Take-Mikazuchi on cooldown and Order being turned against the Imperator, there will be no easy cleanup for the coming revolt, and the loyalists serving under Terumi and Relius will have their hands full.

With the Boundary rending ability, it would be also hard for them to take many actions against him without Litchi eventually catching on, and if that happened, that could be a big chance for her to get out of NOL and seek help from Bang instead, ruining whatever plans they had to her about her research (concentrate on Bang with the risk of Litchi finding out and deserting, or concentrate on Litchi's research and let Bang do whatever plan-ruining he likes). Making matters worse, Hazama's observation on those two are plainly just "Bang is an Ikarugan idiot" and "Litchi is obsessed with saving Arakune", while Relius' observation was "Bang has Kushinada's Device" and "Litchi used to work under Kokonoe." They missed out the bonds between those two, Bang is madly in love with Litchi, and while not really reciprocating it, Litchi considers him a dear friend rather than an idiot; missing that one particular bond and not taking measures for it can be very fatal as it could lead them to consider Bang to be of no consequence for Litchi and their problems are separate problems and won't clash with each other, while in truth... it could be a big consequence.

Their only hope is if, by any chance, Tenjou's son wasn't as clean cut babyface like everyone expected him to be (see the other WMG about this), thus giving Bang a harder time gathering an actual resistance for those two. However, at best it's just 50/50 chance. OR, the chance that Bang wasn't viewed as a folk hero but instead a coward who turned his tails backwards, ran away and abandoned the actual Ikaruga and sucks up to NOL due to his job as a vigilante (after all vigilantes report to NOL). Again, it's just 50/50.

Tactical: As a native to Ikaruga, Bang likely possesses knowledge of the lay of the land, and can strike from anywhere at any time, as well as give his men orders to do the same. Also, it is stated that Platinum's body was born in the region, and may also possess knowledge of hidden routes that Bang can use to slip around town unnoticed by the Library. Hazama is not the kind of guy who has patience for flitting about a town looking for one rebel, so he will become extremely livid before long; aside from dumb luck, he may never find Bang or Platinum.

Much to Hazama's eternal consternation, the other person whose threat level elevates significantly by change of location is that "damned squirrel" Makoto, who had just come off assignment in the region. While not to the same extent as Bang, she does possess a number of factors that can potentially ruin the villains' day - and unlike her first interference with Hazama's schemes, she will be aiming to break things apart this time.

Combat: Makoto is capable of holding her own against Hazama for a period of time, but more likely than not she's going to need an escort or serious intervention to escape alive - Hazama is out for blood, and with Takamagahara down, he's down a Reset Button, and Relius is still out there. Not all is bad, as Rachel did fish her out of the Boundary, and would like a return on her investment, so if it crossed her mind she'd have Valkenhayn offer some training. In addition to being one of the Six Heroes and kicking Relius' ass up and down the block in his youth, he is also a beastkin and, based on his Arcade commentary, is sympathetic to Makoto's plight - if he is ordered to do so, he would help the lass face her racism-riddled past with confidence. Not only would this force Relius to Mind Rape her for longer, which widens Murphy's window (the time in which anything can possibly go wrong), but it could also ease open any restrictions locking Makoto out from her full potential. Suddenly, that "hale and hardy soul" doesn't seem as enticing anymore... and if Relius loses the ability to suppress her movements, what does that say about Terumi?

Diplomacy: Makoto was on assignment under the NOL, remember? As one learns shortly into Slight Hope, the Ibukido branch is not as loyal to the Main Branch due to being removed from regular communications - furthermore, House Mutsugi has been known to mouth off, and likely is just as disloyal. With a proper report and suitable knowledge of the Imperator's affairs with Relius and Hazama, they could be convinced to rebel of their own accord. Having your own squad defect from under you is a massive detriment, as you will lose vital resources and personnel to quelling an uprising. Coupled with Bang, it's safe to say they're going to kick this revolution into overdrive.

Also, one has to consider that Makoto is quite friendly with Bang, due to his aiding Jin in Decisionand Slight Hope. If the two were to meet mid-op, there is a strong possibility they would collaborate on their plans, and possibly unite Sector Seven, NOL Ibukido, and the Ikaruga resistance (if Tenjou's boy was a babyface) under one banner. If that were to happen, well... let's just say they'll be talking about this one for years.

Tactical: Knowledge from alternate timelines does not lose usefulness just because affairs are settled in Kagutsuchi. Makoto is aware that in that timeline, Tsubaki transferred to the Zero Squadron to bring Jin back personally - the girl loves him more than her own job and family. If Makoto were to intercept Tsubaki during "pissy boss" mode, she could tell her what she saw, and coupled with Hakumen's tale, it could at least give her pause and interfere with the brainwashing, at which point anti-magic or Order could dispel it for good. Losing Tsubaki, and control over Jin and Hakumen in the process, is one of the last things Terumi and Relius want right now. Further, Makoto has likely made herself familiar with the lay of the land, though not as much as Bang has. How are Terumi and Relius supposed to eliminate Makoto if they can't find her?

All these are probably planned ahead by both Rachel and Jubei. In Slight Hope, Rachel took notice of Makoto's incident and prepared her for eventually screwing Terumi's plan in the end, while throughout CS stories, Jubei went out all his way to ensure that Bang will be prepared to take the stage, starting from getting Platinum (a resident of Ikaruga) to him so he realizes his potential of Nox Nyctores and also giving hints to Litchi (as seen in Platinum's story) about Bang's potential, probably it's to hope that Litchi would even think of the possibility of other source of help when NOL proves to be inadequate, thus screwing Hazama/Relius' plans (Jubei's work on Bang is done, and he's now preparing for the other screwage: Jin).

Confirmed. And the fall is much harder than one would ever expect. Relius' plans all come crashing down, leaving him a shell of his former self who is defeated by Valkenhayn and later forced to do Carl and Litchi's bidding until the day comes where he's held accountable for all of his evil deeds. Meanwhile, the Six Heroes set up a gambit that leads to Trinity immobilizing Terumi long enough for Hakumen to outright kill him off for good.

Tenjou's son will be EVIL.

Brainwashed and Crazy or just a straight up evil (though probably not to the level of Terumi and Relius), I'm pretty sure that they'll pull this one twist for Bang and finally make it that there's no such thing as overly white faction in the BlazBlue world (Ikaruga Federation included). So... what's the idea behind this guessing? Because Bang is such a Kamen Rider homage, they're going to make yet another homage inside Tenjou's son... evil Riders, in particular the most popular between them: Shadow Moon. (Plus, Shadow Moon shares the same Japanese VA as Jubei, thus making it easier to find VA.)

Jossed. Homura's a nice kid, and the new Imperator of the NOL. Of course, he has his hands full thanks to Izanami's actions...

The REAL reason why NOL tries recruiting Litchi

Yes we know that they probably sought interest in her research in the Boundary. But that's not the true reason. It's just a cover for something...

Because they want to research her boobs, therefore making something to increase the Saya's boobs. Why? Noel is a template of the Saya, therefore she will possess things from her. What's stopping them to say that Saya also has a massive A-Cup Angst and is trying to fix that?

Kokonoe will end up helping Carl against Relius.

At the ending of CS it has already been confirmed that Carl is now going to seek Kokonoe since she once worked with Relius in the past. Over the course of CS's storyline it is flat out stated that Kokonoe despises Relius and hates the fact that she once worked with him. So most likely Kokonoe will be perfectly willing to help Carl against Relius and see what can be done with Ada/Nirvana.

If the theory of Rachel/Valkenhayn also aiding Carl becomes true, the game might play up Kokonoe's Shipper on Deck role for Carl X Rachel (especially to gleefully get a rise out of Rachel). After Kokonoe did do a little bit of that with Carl in his "Help Me Professor Kokonoe" skit on CS.

Jossed. They actually don't even do so much as cross paths, namely because Carl winds up on his father's side as a means to an end.

Arakune will at least regain his sanity and his ability to speak coherently.

Arakune was already showing signs of this in CS but whether it's due to outside causes or whether if he will just naturally be able to regain his sanity and the ability to speak coherently. This would help make sure that Litchi's time with the NOL is short-lived as he can try to help her escape and if he manages to escape with her than he will try to be The Atoner for all the damage he has caused as his current form.

Partially confirmed. Arakune will speak in full sentences in Chronophantasma. Still mad as a box of frogs, though.

Hazama will get so jealous of Relius getting more attention than him.

If Carl does indeed get a bigger role in BB3 the storyline will most likely pay a bit more attention to Relius than Hazama and at least in a Gag Reel or few Hazama will be seen as a petty whiner that he is not getting as much attention as he use to. Granted this doesn't mean that Hazama will be a flat out case of Demoted to Extra but he will most likely get less of a role in the sequel. Though granted Relius and Hazama will probably start to lose their Villain Sue status by the sequel but still.

Will be utter gold to see. Judging from Rachel's bad end, Hazama seems to be thriving when people pay attention and SUFFER for his schemes. Being ignored would be one thing he'd really abhor. Like a real Internet Troll indeed.

Ragna, Jin, and Saya are all clones of whatever was found in the remains of the Black Beast...

... which was almost certainly either a fusion of Bloodedge and Nu-13 or just Nu-13. It's already been hinted multiple times that Ragna at least is an Artificial Human, meaning it's very possible for Jin and Saya to be the same, and it would be why they needed to hide Saya from Terumi: she's a successful clone of the Black Beast's core, something you really don't want to let Yuuki Terumi have. He got his hands on her anyway. What's more, if this image is official as people say it is, it shows that Ragna has a similar tattoo to the Murakumo Units, and that he's number 5, which might make Jin number 6 and Saya number 7. Which would call into question just how many 'failed' Boundary Interface Prime Field Devices were in Ikaruga when Makoto found them: 5 and 6 are running free, 7 is the Imperator, 11 was stolen by Sector Seven, 12 is Noel Vermillion, and 13 is possibly regenerating in a Cauldron at NOL headquarters, meaning that even if they'd preserved all the other clones, Makoto could only have found seven of them. Also, it would make Ragna possibly a clone of himself, Saya a clone of a clone of herself, and Jin his own uncle who has his Alternate Timelinefuture self running around.

One interesting info: After the war, scientists have researched the Black Beast's remains and extracted the Beast Genes from it, and with it, they created artificial humans.

The next game, Terumi will be a separate character with Hazama

As it stands right now, Unlimited Hazama is pretty much a stand-in for Terumi, except with his fedora and eyes still closed. Come next game, however, Terumi will take Mu-12's place as 'Other self of an existing character', in which he will have his Anime Hair and both eyes open, and possibly separate moveset than regular Hazama, to emphasis more on his Ax-Crazy self rather than his "pimpin' smooth criminal" guise. He'll also be the hidden final boss a la Mu-12 or Unlimited Ragna. When fighting against other characters, it's simply Terumi shedding his Hazama guise and decided to finally get serious. But when the player IS Hazama, the plot will go like Kazuma Kvar finally regaining sentience and claims an extra body for him to use the Hazama moveset, while Terumi retains his own body and fights Kazuma/Hazama as Terumi himself.

At least sorta confirmed for the console release as a pre-order bonus, a Six-Heroes-alike Terumi appears as a playable character. Whether this is just Terumi in the past (Order-Sol style) or a legitimate alternate personality as a result of Kazuma resurfacing is up for grabs, but since the whole plot revolves around time travel there's no reason the two couldn't exist in the same universe and — what else? — beat the hell out of each other.

And it turns out that this Terumi is the one from the past a la Order-Sol. Well, it's actually a case of Literal Split Personality (Hazama = Faux Affably Evil smooth criminal who keeps up the masquerade in public, Terumi = Ax-Crazy sadist who surfaces when his cover is blown or he's feeling particularly nasty), with Terumi being materialized outside of Hazama's body via Platinum's Muchorin so that the heroes can kill him off (and Hazama in tow). Still no sign of Kazuma, though.

Hazama and/or Relius will still be the general Arcade mode end-bosses but things will go a bit differently. The character you are playing as will either be able to either counterattack them when their gloating and/or get saved by one of the other characters. This will serve as a bit of Take That! to BlazBlue: Continuum Shift's Arcade due to how it was a known reason why Hazama (and to a lesser extent Relius) is highly regarded as a Villain Sue. At worst the character you are playing as will be able to successfully retreat while at best Hazama or Relius will be the one(s) forced to retreat. However not to go too far into Diminishing Villain Threat Hazama and Relius will most likely not be excluded from being victorious at all in their respective Arcade Mode playthroughs.

Each character has their own respective end boss, though Hazama and Relius show up a fair amount of times as the final opponent in others' Arcade routes. Other than that, it's confirmed: They both get some karma thrown on them on certain endings while they get away with what they wanted on other ones.

There is no third game planned.

Mori has absolutely no idea where to take the plot, so he's deliberately trying to kill off the series through terrible spin-offs note Remix Heart, for example and endless re-releases of Continuum Shift. After everyone abandons the sinking ship, he'll be free!

There will be a spin-off title featuring Jin, chronicling his time during the Ikaruga Civil War.

Because why not? Besides, it's already implied that the war was orchestrated by the NOL, so it could be beneficial for helping to better understand the universe of BB. Its name? BlazBlue Musou. note If the joke is lost on you, Jin's infamous Icecar technique is named Musou Senshouzan. Alternatively, another scenario could show Bang defending Ikaruga from NOL soldiers. What's not to like?

Bang has poor eyesight.

This explains why he mistakes Noel for a young man even though she is clearly female. All he has to go off of is chest size. This also explains his winquote against Litchi (in which he frantically questions who just beat the stuffing out of her). He didn't recognize her until the fight ended.

Taokaka is going to teach Arakune how to emote.

If I recall correctly, Taokaka and the Kaka clan do wear mask. And she can somehow emote with it. And Arakune wears a mask too; therefore, in some continuity, Taokaka will find Arakune and teach him how to emote with his mask. Learning this will help him communicate with others better. A little. Of course, before this Taokaka and Squiggly would have to fight each other, but Taokaka would win anyways. Might even be a gag ending, with some foreshadowing.

He lies to you he won't let you be/ He's got your chains of misery/ He won't be still till he's turned your key/ He holds your chains of misery

Arakune did NOT learn his lessons and be appreciative for what Litchi did

First of all, his quote in the trailer is about how he no longer needs a certain something/someone, all while Laughing Mad after he's able to speak coherently. What's to say that Litchi did succeed improving his condition, and he paid it by being a colossal dick to her... AGAIN? Recall that other materials portray him as thinking that Litchi is utterly annoying and his only obsession is to become the ultimate scientist above all else. Then he also got a much more sadistic and creepy Astral Heat. It could be that he's merely manipulating Litchi's feeling to cure him in some parts that at least makes him coherent again, and then ditches her because that's all she's useful for to him, probably also taunting just how stupid Litchi was because she's too "obsessed" on him.

His love of manipulation in humans, to the point of them killing each other, are very blatant, and he's having a blast of it. So he wanted a total safe haven where all those could happen. He wanted to be the one who gets to arrange how people die, Trolling them after giving them various Hope Spot, in various ways he finds entertaining rather than following the flow of nature. Of course this is one reason he sought to eliminate Takamagahara, he can't have something just reset his designs making him start from zero all over.

This will have the side effect that having someone kill Terumi means killing a part of living: Death itself. Though probably it would be remedied after killing Terumi that Ragna would make a Heroic Sacrifice and lives up to his Grim Reaper moniker, becoming Death itself. However, unlike Terumi, he'll be decidedly nicer.

Unlikely. There's already a god of death pulling the strings here, and her name ain't Terumi. It's Izanami.

How this is possible, I can't say, but both Arakune and Alex Mercer are amoral scientists who were turned into shape-shifting monstrosities associated with the color black and absorb knowledge through the consumption of other living beings. Well, Alex is actually the virus itself, but let's not let technicalities get in the way.

Litchi won't survive Chronophantasma.

Though Arakune is getting better, regaining his speech and his sanity, Litchi is more in-tune with the Boundary then ever. She'll find a cure, probably Bang's Phoenix: Rettenjou, and make sure Arakune gets cured, but she won't get to it in time. Maybe she can't get to Bang, maybe she'll have done some bad things while working for the NOL and doesn't really want to live with the guilt, maybe Hazama or Relius will capture her and keep her in one place so she'll just rot away, but whatever happens, she's either dead, or turned into another blob thing like Arakune was.

This will bring problem, because even for Drama's sake, this would remove the Litchi player of the game, and there's none to inherit her skill. Linhua is too inexperienced in the game, and if Bang cures Lotte while Litchi becomes the next Arakune, Lotte wouldn't suddenly turn into the successor of Litchi's moveset, no signs of him being an exceptional fighter (and his style would clash with Litchi's Chinese style, because he's definitely NOT Chinese). Not to mention, according to interviews of Chronophantasma, the developers DO like Litchi and her gameplay enough that she's probably going to stay. It is more plausible to make it that Lotte is the one who doesn't survive and after trying her best, Litchi would finally learn about letting go, and eventually becomes the one cured by Bang's Rettenjou. Lotte dies, but the creature Arakune and his moveset would live on (maybe possessing something else), while Litchi and her moveset lived on as well. Best of both worlds, really.

Thankfully Jossed. Litchi's alive and well as of the game's close, though the threat of her eventual degeneration continues to hang over her head.

Arakune knows about the fourth wall.

Some of his dialogue mentions people watching. This may refer to Takamagahara, but if this line continues into Chronophantasma, then he's not talking about that anymore, he's talking about the player. He recognised when he was in a JRPG in his Gag Reel, and the set of the fourth-wall-breaking segment Help Me Professor Kokonoe! is apparently in the boundary somewhere, so his Genre Savvy-ness coupled with the Boundary may allow him to see out of the screen.

Makoto's been all but confirmed as bisexual, so this is a possibility. She has the odd tease with Jin, Tsubaki, Platinum and Carl, but Noel's the only one she's actually serious with. She's very protective of Noel (willing to defy the NOL AND Sector Seven to protect her), Noel was the first one to really take her in with open arms in the NOL Academy, Relius mentioning Noel was one of the major things that broke Makoto in her bad ending, and even before Makoto was revealed as bi their interactions were utterly dripping with Les Yay. The only reason Makoto's hasn't openly revealed her feelings yet is because she's not really sure Noel feels the same way, and is scared of what her reaction could be. Maybe she'll pop the question in one of Chronophantasma's non-canon segments or one of the tie-in mangas, but I doubt it will happen in the main storyline, at least in the English dub. Eastern developers have been known to Hide Their Gays on the western releases of their games (like with Kanji from Persona 4, who was outright stated to be gay in the Japanese release, but made more ambiguous in the western release because the dev team thought western audiences wouldn't like a gay character), so we'll have to wait for people to translate the Japanese release for conformation or Jossing.

I don't know where you heard Kanji was explicitly called gay in the Japanese release but I'm pretty sure that' not the case. If anything, it's just as ambiguous as, despite what anime would have you believe, Japan has just as much a Hide Your Gays attitude as the west. Similarly, I don't know where Makoto has been confirmed as bisexual either. It'd be pretty cool for BlazBlue to have the balls to make it so but it sounds like wishful thinking for the most part. Alas.

The main hint for the possibility of Makoto being bi (aside of how protective she is of Noel and Tsubaki) comes from the Remix Heart manga, where she plants a big one on Mai (while stark naked, no less). Technically speaking, it's het Ship Tease, but since no one has yet to discover that Mai is really a guy turned into a girl thanks to the power of the Grimoire, you can see why this is so big in regards to Makoto's sexuality. Then again, given how fanservice-laden Remix Heart is, it's hard to argue that Makoto is the only offender; the manga has some rather strong Les Yay overtones, veering into at least a Romantic Two-Girl Friendship between all five of the main female leads (and this is in spite of everyone still playing Shipper on Deck for Tsubaki/Jin).

There IS an official art made by Arc System Works [1]◊. It would also explain why Makoto is so protective of Noel whenever Kagura tries to flirt with the latter. OTOH, it is also hinted that Makoto and Kagura had a one-night stand awhile back.

This has been slightly confirmed by Mori in the latest interview. According to him, TSUBAKI was supposed to be a lesbian character in love with Noel. But he changed his idea and made Tsubaki Jin-sexual and Makoto to fill the gap. More information can be found in the BlazBlue Wiki[2]

The final boss for Chronophantasma arcade mode is not Nu-13 or Imperitor Librarius but Tsubaki.

Confirmed.... sort of; her Super Mode, Izayoi, is the final boss for some characters, Makoto and Jin among them.

Bang Shishigami is a pseudonym.

I mean, what kind of "Japanese" name is Bang? Very un-Japanese and probably written in Katakana. Pretty sure when he's born in Ikaruga, he has a much more common Japanese name, but as he took up the "Hero of Justice" persona, he thinks his old name just won't give a good impression, he needs an "Awesome McCool" Name, so he came up with the name "Bang Shishigami" and got too over that he used it as if it's his birth name.

Eh, in this game, NO ONE (save Jubei, who has a kanji name) was born in Japan anyway. Let alone Bang or the entirety of Ikaruga.

The villains' plans will backfire horribly.

As the true ending of Continuum Shift transpires, Hazama states that he will carve the "Sword of the Imperator" (implied to be Nu-13). Now that Noel has tamed her Mu form (not fully confirmed yet), and once Nu (personality is self-explanatory) is awakened, he and Relius are in deep trouble... Unless they have another backup plan.

... Isn't that probably why they brought Litchi in the first place? Unless she instead suddenly rebels and put yet another wrench to their plan. Not to mention, as of the current state, Noel managed to free Tsubaki from their control and in turn, she becomes Izayoi to get stronger... They may as well try appealing Azrael for tons of good fights or goading Bullet with the surefire revenge method for Sector Seven...

Perhaps... Considering how much of a depraved scientist Relius has shown himself to Litchi, the backup plan they have in store for her (if any) is very unlikely.

Jossed, their plan is going rather smoothly. But then Izanami chooses to disown Hazama and Relius after they've done their part of the plan.

Makoto will be the next victim of Litchi's cosplay fetish.

Since Noel and Tsubaki were already in scenes with Litchi regarding her cosplay fetish, Makoto will most likely be the next victim of Litchi's cosplay fetish in a gag reel. However much to Litchi's surprise unlike the previous two ladies Makoto will end up liking it and the gag reel will try to play up the fanservice as much as they can for a T-Rated game (and will probably lampshade that fact as well).

With Mu-12 and Izayoi coming into full swing in Chronophantasma, speculation of a "Murakumo Makoto" or similar is in full swing, with this image◊ the latest in the line (though the image is a parody bringing up the point). However, the entire idea of Makoto getting a Super Mode in such a fashion reeks of plotkai, and here are the reasons that oppose it - while "Unlimited" Makoto would be welcome, that's likely as far as she'll need to go without crossing certain lines.

Both Lux Sanctus: Murakumo and the Sealed Weapon Izayoi are armagus weapons, the former a variant of Nox Nyctores. A degree of ars magus aptitude is required to use them, and Noel and Tsubaki both have at least above-average aptitude (Noel has the highest on record in the Academy). Makoto's aptitude is average at best in comparison, which means she is limited to utility ars, Comet Cannon and Asteroid Vision. This is not enough for such a Super Mode, regardless of whether her tonfas are armagus or not.

Eastern philosophy in real life states that the strength of a person's heart indicates the potency of their ability, combat-related or otherwise. Further, Relius' own research on souls explains that the strength of one's focus and the number of ways the soul observes itself are indicators of its quality. When one puts those two together, it is clear where Makoto stands - Relius Clover himself states that Makoto's soul is of a higher quality than his own daughter's, and he already used Ada's soul in Nirvana. Even if Makoto doesn't cross the line, such a Super Mode would be redundant.

Rachel and Kokonoe are both aware how much Makoto, Noel and Tsubaki mean to each other - Rachel from witnessing Makoto firsthand, and Kokonoe over the month between Continuum Shift and Chronophantasma. Attempting to beat Relius to the punch and integrate Makoto into a Murakumo-esque weapon would be out of character (for Rachel at least), completely stupid (given aforementioned low ars aptitude), and would easily alienate Noel from both of them, with Tsubaki and possibly Jin to likely follow. Whatever such a move would benefit them, antagonizing the rest of the cast through a chain reaction of scorn counts as "diminishing returns" for both of them.

Maybe not with a Murakumo Unit or similar - if Makoto ever gets a Super Mode of sorts, its origins must be something else. But then again, she may really not get it after all.

Bullet killed her own unit and is in heavy denial about it.

Since she's apparently so far blamed Sector Seven, Relius and the Wings of Justice for killing her unit it doesn't look like she has an actual, coherent idea of who did it, so how about this:

In actuality she had in fact killed her own unit herself, for unknown reasons. The incident, however, caused her so much trauma since she was as close as family to them, that she mentally blocked it out and fell into denial about the whole thing, even blaming others for it, quite like what happened with Siegfried when he accidentally killed his own father. Her story will be her gradually going more insane as she chases the "culprit" responsible for their deaths, until someone, most likely Rachel, Relius or Terumi or even Kokonoe finally force her to face the truth. What her reaction may be is up to interpretation.

In the end, though, it was Azrael who admitted it, straight to Bullet. So, jossed.

Amane's vain, seemingly creepy persona is actually just plain Kayfabe, a show put on for the "audience."

Once Carl actually does join Amane's troupe, it turns out that behind the scenes, Amane's a surprisingly nice, great guy, and that his usual persona of being all vain and obsessed with youth is just a show he puts on when out in public as part of his "show." He treats Carl and Ada kindly and respects Carl's wishes, and is not the type to betray him, especially considering that doing so would be bad for business.

I only say this because if he really is just a generic creepy paedo type I'll be pretty disappointed.

His troupe does adore him because Amane cares for them, so this is confirmed... though not the Kayfabe part.

Sometime in the future, Ragna will receive some kind of new move/ability from the arm of his made from Lambda.

And I'm not talking about the Idea Engine Ragna absorbed from her when she took a blade to the back to protect Rags from Hazama. I'm referring to something, a technique or otherwise, based off of what Lambda is capable of in-game. This doesn't seem to be the case in Chronophantasma, but you'd think having an arm made from the remains of a Murakumo Unit would give you some sort of power boost.

There's a power boost from it, yeah, but it only translates to him activating Blood Kain without it draining his health now.

It's a happy-looking world at first, but the deeper you dig in, the more insane and horror-filled you get, one that may reduce yourself into insanity, or as many Let's Play-ers got reduced to insanity as they got deeper into the game. And Lotte Carmine is a Zee Tee that tried so hard, died many times and finally reached the "Good Ending." Once he got his "goal," he already turned into Arakune.

Chronophantasma is said to be not the game to conclude BlazBlue's story. Guilty Gear's story is also far from finished and ASW is preparing for a new PS4 fighting game IP. What better way to conclude two series by canonically crossing them over for the finale and finishing two birds in one stone?

That idea holds great potential for turning into a debacle of Biblical proportions if not handled with the utmost care. According to Word of God, CS was only about halfway through the story's plot, so assuming CP doesn't throw some eleventh hour twist our way that further extends the story (which wouldn't be unbelievable), we still have at least one more game to go. Guilty Gear is less clear on when the end will be in sight, what with the Time Skip between the first three titles and Overture and the Sequel Hook during GG2's Stinger. Consider just how dense a story both series contain in just the actual games alone. Now imagine what would happen if these plotlines intertwined. That adds yet another layer of complexity to the mix, especially since the casts and universes mesh together so well. Wrapping up everything would be a daunting task, and trying to do so in the span of one game, no matter how comprehensive the story mode is, runs the risk of coming across as rushed, which wouldn't go over well with many. There's no doubt fans would like to see a crossover between both series, but closing the curtains on two of the most plot-heavy fighters in the genre's history by means of that is probably not best the way to go about it. If not outright non-canon, a Crisis Crossover sequel that sets up a proper new installment (much like P4A did) seems like a better approach.

Kagura Mutsuki is Lord Tenjou's son.

Calling it right now. While he's allegedly part of one of the Duodecim families, this doesn't mean much, since the Kisaragi family is known to adopt talented children with the potential to use Armagus from all over the world to strengthen their line. Only Tsubaki's is confirmed to be bloodline-devoted. If the Mutsuki family operates the same as the Kisaragi, then Kagura might well have been adopted and raised as a Mutsuki. And he's now planning his coup in revenge for his father. He looks a lot more ethnically Japanese than almost anyone else in the series, too.

This'll cause timeline problems. Kagura's the head of the Mutsuki family, and if he's Tenjou's son, that means he's kidnapped at the 2nd War of Magic and in the time span between the game proper and that particular war, how the hell does he amass such power that he's the head of the biggest family in Duodecim?

I don't remember reading anywhere that he's the head, just that he's in it and that he's a Colonel. He could very well have the family heads doing the "organizing" for him, and he's The Man in Front of the Man.

Jossed. Tenjo is revealed as the former Imperator, surname Amanohokosaka and he's still alive, sort of, inside Pheonix Rettenjo. His son is called Homura. Kagura is just a former disciple of his, and is now Homura's legal guardian it would seem, though he is the head of the Mutsuki family.

Amane is Nago given a human form.

Courtesy of Rachel. She has Nago run an errand for her by giving him a human body, and having him pose as a travelling showman/immortal sorcerer so that he can find the vigilante Carl Clover. And as such, Amane shall be voiced by Ezra Weisz in the English Dub. Because why not?

Jossed by all accounts.

Bullet's team was massacred by Azrael.

Apparently, her team was killed in an incident involving Sector Seven. One of Azrael's many crimes is supposedly genocide. Plus, if Azrael's being sent out under orders from Sector Seven now, who's to say that hasn't happened before?

And this will pave the way to make Azrael the Terumi to Bullet's Ragna.

Confirmed! And in fact Azrael was part of Bullet's team before he massacred them due to him being so much of a berserker. Well, he was a recruited "extra" member so to speak.

In the English dub of CP, players will be given the option to switch Hazama's battle voice from Erik Davies to Doug Erholtz.

Carl's had a strong attachment to Litchi since her voice is similar to Nirvana's, which would obviously tear him apart when he hard to face her while she's working for the NOL. Since it's been revealed that Celica was the previous user of Nirvana it's reasonable to believe that Carl would give up his position.

Tempting, but probably not. Carl also built up his own unique pool of moves and strategy that Celica wouldn't even be able use or replicate, she's a magic user, not a tech-wiz, this will enrage many Carl players and probably that's why ASW is against removing a character no matter the reason. Besides, if Carl's gone, there's none with bigger beef against Relius for a proper showdown, and with Ignis, specifically Carl's mother, as his doll, the 'rivalry impact' that Celica would bring against Relius is smaller than what Carl would bring.

It's shown that Kokonoe has built a duplicate of Nirvana, Ex Machina: Minerva, for Celica's use, so they could both appear in the roster, preferably with completely different playstyles.

Arakune used to be handsome.

Really, the only things "supporting" this are one line in his Help Me, Professor Kokonoe segment ("You trying to pull that 'I used to be a hottie' move?") and Litchi's sometimes baffling fixation on returning him to normal. There's actually no definite evidence that he used to be beautiful, but... well, this entry won't spoil the page or anything.

Litchi trying to fix him to normal probably isn't because of his looks, as she always said "Never judge a book by its cover." So there's a good chance that Lotte Carmine is not that handsome and she cares for him anyway. However, BlazBlue is an anime-based series so it's pretty much quite the requirement that you need to be at least decent looking, so this WMG has a good chance to be confirmed.

One of the story stills in CPrevealed alongside the announcement of Kokonoe (scroll all the way down towards the bottom of the page; I'd link to the picture directly, but its url will cause formatting issues) shows Litchi happily chatting it up with another scientist. If that's Lotte (and it probably is), confirmed.

As seen in the Sector Seven story path, that is indeed Roy (i.e Lotte's alias), so consider this one in the bag.

The Final Battle of the series will be Ragna and Jin vs Saya and will be set to "Stardust memory" or a remixed version.

(Not OP) As Saya seems to very well be a Puppet Queen because of whatever it is she's a vessel for, it seems more likely that a) Terumi and Relius will eventually ditch her once she's fulfilled her role (possibly by the climax of Chronophantasma if Continuum Shift is indeed the halfway marker for the plot) and b) the last battle will be between Ragna and Terumi. Still, if Saya doesn't end up biting it and is restored to normal, it'd be refreshing to see all three siblings band together to do away with our resident troll. With all that they've been put through, they deserve at least that much.

The WMG header is not jossed; the bullet below, however, is. "Saya" is actually the goddess of death Izanami possessing Saya and the one who pulled the strings on Terumi (and Relius). In the end Saya is still around and is still the antagonist, so the clash stated in the header might come true in the next game.

Bullet, Azrael, and Amane are all part of Takamagahara.

Up until this point, all the characters we had seen introduced as playable characters had been NPCs in previous games. This three newcomers break that trend... Or do they? Upon rewatching scenes with Takamagahara in CS, I noticed they also followed Two Guys and a Girl. Further, one male who spoke in an effeminate voice, (Amane) one male in a gruff voice, (Azrael) and one female in a focused voice (Bullet). How? Simply put, given the sheer amount of power Takamagahara held, it stands to reason that this super reality-hacking computer had a back-up plan prepared in case it were breached... Which, while impossible in it's eyes, was still something to plan for. Hence, the three aspects of Takamagahara's body (TA, TB, and TC) upon the Phantom's virus wrecking things, were each uploaded to sleeper agents Takamagahara personally had created and placed into the world in positions they could manipulate. This both explains why these three new characters hadn't been a part of the plot up until now, or even mentioned... Takamagahara brought them into existence. Oh, and if these three characters don't outwardly act like the above is true? Easy Amnesia caused by the Phantom's Virus damaging their memory, causing them to Become the Mask.

Jossed. Bullet's a merc belonging to the same strike team it's implied Tager was from, Azrael fought in the Ikaruga Civil War, and Amane is an enigmatic leader of a dance troupe who may be an immortal Observer like Rachel.

The Kaka clan, alongside being genetically engineered from Jubei, also had genes from other sources mixed in.

Compare Marvin the Martian◊ to Taokaka.◊ Since it's only some Martian genes, it's why you can see the mouths of the Kakas, as well as only affecting their face.

Ouroboros and Terumi

A lot of people have come to the conclusion that his Nox contributes to his madness, but what if it's actually the opposite? We know from Bolverk's effects on Noel that some Nox act as emotional suppressants. Furthermore, Terumi gets his own spot on the roster in Chronophantasma; it's already been said on released info that he no longer uses Ouroboros in this form, so maybe he discarded it because it's actually holding him back and has only just found a way of doing so. It's a known fact that Ouroboros can affect one's memories, so what if it's affecting Terumi too? There may be some canon material that contradicts this idea, but wth.

Not true. Terumi does use Ouroboros in CP; it's just that he uses it far less than Hazama does (only during specials and Distortion Drives) so as to keep the two forms distinct from one another in terms of playstyle. It's unlikely that he'd discard of it considering that he killed Nine because, in addition to his way of saying thanks for being brainwashed into helping the others fight the Black Beast, Ouroboros was in line to get the souls used in its creation released (thus rendering it useless), not to mention that Ouroboros appears to be his go-to tool for Mind Rape (and sadistic torture in general). However, while Nox Nyctores tend to have negative effects on its users (i.e. Jin's sanity, or lack thereof, thanks to Yukianesa), for all we know, Terumi was already that unhinged and evil from the beginning, with Ouroboros only worsening things.

If Platinum's body really is Trnity, when when she returns to normal, Luna/Sena would go to the Boundary

Platinum was a Fusion Dance between Trinity Glassfield and Kazuma Kval

Trinity and Kazuma were sent to the Boundary right? We knew what happened to Trinity but what happened to Kazuma? My guess is that his soul wound up in Trinity's body but in the process Split into two.

Nah, Kazuma is still in his own body, up until Jubei forced Terumi out of his body and then Hakumen seals himself and Terumi into a Cauldron. What happens to Kazuma after that... is still unknown.

All of the Chronphantasma DLC characters will have their own Story Modes eventually, and one of the DLC characters is going to be Celica

For the second one, it's been revealed that Celica's younger self was transported to Chronophantasma's timeframe by Kokonoe. On top of that, she has had some strangely disproportionate attention in promo material, having a cameo in a trailer and being alongside two main characters, Noel (the female lead) and Rachel (the Big Good), in a collector's set's box art. On top of that, Platinum was introduced in Continuum Shift, and she became a playable character. For the first point, it has happened with Makoto, Valkenhayn, and Platinum (and Relius to a lesser extent, due to him coming with CS EXTEND). To justify Terumi in his Six Heroes outfit being in the same game as Hazama, I'm going to vouch for a previously mentioned WMG (i.e., that Kazuma Kval will regain his body, and any games after Chronophantasma will have Kazuma adopt Hazama's moveset for the sake of great justice).

If the Story Mode's structure is like CS, then this WMG is very plausible. However, with how the structure leads to be more of a 3 main stories that would combine into one big true end... having Kagura, Kokonoe, Terumi and Celica getting their own Story Modes would be completely unfair. Best they got would be a "side story" or "fourth story" revolving them. But overall, it'll be harder to even include a special story mode for the DLCs without revamping the whole Story Mode ordeal in CP.

Maybe that sidestory can be a bit of an epilogue if Kazuma does indeed regain control over himself.

Celica becomes a playable character alright... in Extend. And some characters do get their own story alright - Bullet, Kagura and Kokonoe. Nothing about Kazuma though.

Now we know that Saya is possessed by the Goddess of the underworld, Izanami, is it possible that she's been yanking Terumi's chain all along, while all the time making him (and indeed us) think that he's the one doing the yanking by acting like the puppet ruler. Hell, given what we know of her worldview, it's possible she's responsible for his Kill 'em All tendencies.

Oh so confirmed.

Incoming timeskip

After Terumi being deemed surplus to requirements in Chronophantasma, will there be a timeskip to change the dynamic given that Izanami is possibly looking to be the new Big Bad? Some characters will be retired (and given something approaching closure) and give some background characters the space to come into the playable lineup (coughjubeicoughcough). Valkenhayn did foresee the series going stale in HMPK, but as Kokonoe has already made the jump to playable, it'll have be something else to refresh the franchise (if it's even needed).

With how the story goes, not likely. The thing about Take-Mikazuchi Embryo turning people into seithr and being drained to it is a big, imminent problem that has to be taken into consideration immediately, it's not like the transition between CS and CP where the stage changed from Kagutsuchi to Ikaruga, everything is still happening in Ikaruga, and it's where Izanami is still stationed. I foresee that an expansion will come up and give the ones Demoted to Extra (three newcomers, Tao, Arakune) a chance to shine, along with some new bloods (like Jubei, he probably is the only new addition, seeing that Relius was the sole new addition in CS Extend), a bit modifications of some characters' skills (e.g: Relius possibly getting a new Astral due to his breakdown in the end). Once Izanami is offed, I see it that the current BlazBlue saga will end and then a timeskip with a brand new cast ensemble will be introduced, if ASW wants to do another BB.

It may be just a gut feeling, but a LOT of her life seems to have deals with the five stages, as she grieves over the loss of Lotte Carmine. Here's how it goes:

Denial (Calamity Trigger): Litchi lived blissfully in Orient Town, she loved it, they loved her. She tried running away by thinking that the only way to solve her problem with Arakune is to kill him. However, in the end, she realized that this is not the way and she must save him so she sought for Kokonoe.

Anger (Continuum Shift): Unfortunately for her, Kokonoe refused to help her and reveal that Litchi is rather close in time to becoming the next Arakune, along with her memory problems. When she realized that the only plausible help to save Lotte was in fact in NOL alongside Hazama and the insinuations that Arakune has been taken in, Litchi ended up joining NOL, but she is angered with the fact that she can't do a thing about it, this is shown during her encounter with Rachel, she was surprisingly angry and full of outbursts, and even this carried over to their encounter in Chronophantasma's Arcade Route. Even in Chronophantasma's Story, she's still in this phase with her angry remarks on Hazama and Relius, and went on ranting when Kokonoe once again refused her.

Bargaining (Chronophantasma): Litchi finally found out that a cure may be impossible. However, Relius offers her one thing: If she helps him recreate the world, she can have a chance to undo her mistake of not stopping Lotte in time so she can have her normal life again. Even if she still doesn't like Relius, she's willing to bargain for one last time for a chance to live normally, at this point she wouldn't be long in this world. However, she's pitted against Bang Shishigami and had to break his heart by attacking him. However...

Depression (Chronophantasma epilogue-Next game): Bang persevered and screwed Relius' plan, also in time when Izanami tossed Relius aside, causing him to fall into depression and Litchi loses her chance and manpower to recreate the world. The WMG is that she will fall into depression that every of her attempts ends in failure and her time is shortened further that Izanami is threatening the current world and her. Not to mention that she ruined her friendship with her friends, abandoning the old ones and right now, her dream of living a normal life, her promise to stay in Orient Town and help people... all shattered and she has no one to blame but herself. Fortunately for her, there's Carl nearby, and unlike the dismissive Kokonoe and Rachel, he will more likely try to understand her and maybe give her a hug, just like how she hugged him back in CS. And with Relius depressed, there's no way he can interrupt this like in CS.

Acceptance (Centralfiction): With Carl's help, Litchi may be able to find strength to move on and perhaps find hope in this current world, either by using the best of her limited time or found enough strength to get HERSELF, not Lotte, cured. Since Carl's original goal in the end of CS and at the beginning of CP was to meet Kokonoe (until he's distracted by Litchi's peril), big chance that he'll bring her and Relius to Kokonoe, and there, Litchi can mend ways with the ones she abandoned (Bang, Makoto, Noel, etc) and with luck, perhaps she will get a chance to say her final farewell to Arakune. With that being solved, Litchi can now resume operating like a normal woman.

The things from Denial and early Depression seems to be strikingly accurate with what happened to her and the things put to set things up like that. But then again, it's Mori, the chance happening is just 50/50.

Amane is Izanagi, or at least possessed by him.

It would explain his immortality, as well as his resemblance to Izanami-possessed Saya.

Maybe his creepy obsession with youth and beauty is actually a twisted offshoot of his desire to turn time back to when Izanami was unmarred and non-murderous. Also, his big project might be the Astral Finishing of Izanami.

Does relying on Iaido actually impede Jin?

This Troper is of the opinion that Iaijutsu and its namesakes are Awesome, but Impractical. You see plenty of other characters use it, yes, but they tend to use it either a) against enemies who are much weaker than they are; Yamamoto against Ayon, Vergil against that Grim Reaper thing , or unworthy opponents; Mitsurugi vs Tanegashima. In other words, they only use it to show off because they know they'll get away with it, and when they fight someone who is actually worth their time, they forego it and switch to conventional swordplay; Yama vs Aizen and Ywhach, Vergil vs Dante in cutscenes (Rule of Cool combined with Gameplay and Story Segregation), and so on. Keeping it in series, even Hakumen seems to follow this, as he never uses it (Yukikaze, for example; Jin does, Haku doesn't), impracticality of his sword size notwithstanding, yet Jin uses it exclusively, even in cutscenes, especially in circumstances where it would be extemely unwise to do so, as Ragna would no doubt attest. Would he do a better job if he learned how to use Yukianesa in ways other than Iaido?

This is simply speculation, but it is possible that he learned Iaido because Yukianesa needed the technique to function in the first place. Whenever he takes the swords out the sheath decompresses, implying that the sheath has something to do with the power of the sword. And considering that the blade is apparently made of ice it wouldn't be to much of a stretch to assume that it needs to be re-sheathed each time after making an attack. Once again just a guess on this tropers part, but considering that Hakumen has no trouble using a different fighting style it is relatively safe to assume that Jin's fighting style is used to match the weapon.

Tsubaki and/or Jin WILL end up killing Rachel

The other wiki states that Observers (i.e. Rachel) must observe themselves at all times or they'd cease to exist, which makes Rachel's request to Tsubaki kind of odd; if Rachel wanted to die so badly if/when things went pear-shaped, couldn't she just stop observing herself? The fact she asks Tsu implies it will happen at some point. Which leads to this; what will become of Hakumen? Rachel's observing him is the only thing keeping him around (and Haku's saying even that's not enough anymore), so if she dies, so does he, which makes little sense for the good guys. Haku used to be observed by Kokonoe, so Rach could hand him back if need be. Unless the plan is for present Jin, who seems quite a lot stronger than WoF Jin (the current Haku), to replace him, which seems unlikely.

There will be 2 Ragna in the next game.

Like Hazama and Terumi in CP, there's gonna be 2 versions of Ragna: the normal one to please the fans and Black Beast Ragna who, like Terumi, will have "Black Onslaught 3" as his theme. Also, if this version defeats Rachel, she doesn't just shrug it off as usual. She actually dies.

Fans have been clamoring for ASW to pull an Order-Sol and put Bloodedge in the game as an alternate Ragna, so perhaps now might be the best time to capitalize on that. Additionally, since Bloodedge is Ragna circa CP (but prior to Izanami controlling him), maybe the newly-introduced Chrono Phantasma plot device that brought back Celica could be used to also pull Bloodedge from the past (again). They could even do something similar to how Siegfried and Nightmare were split off and underwent Divergent Character Evolution in Soulcalibur III: Bloodedge gets the bulk of Ragna's moveset (being unable to move his right arm—which, luckily, Ragna doesn't use in too many of his attacks to begin with—can be handwaved on the principle of Ambidextrous Sprite, but certain moves, like Belial Edge, Blood Scythe, Straight Punch, Not Over Yet, and his ground throws, would need reworking), but switches out Soul Eater for a new Drive, thus changing the properties of his existing moves where necessary. For example... moves that'd require little-to-no alterations, like Carnage Scissors, would no longer absorb health; Ax Kick would be reverted back to its CT input (meaning it lacks the lifesteal effect), and Back Spin Kick could follow suit; his D attacks that involve trails of darkness or parts of the Black Beast would lose these visual effects, etc. Meanwhile, Black Beast Ragna keeps Soul Eater, but to ensure he's distinct from Bloodedge (who'd be closer in style to Ragna originally), Black Beast Ragna forgoes wielding Blood-Scythe for the most part, his moveset remaining rushdown-oriented, but with an increased focus on shapeshifting his limbs. Thus, he'd be the one with attacks like Dead Spike, Devoured by Darkness, and Ragna's Crush Trigger, though there's room for some overlap.

Rachel is the Master Unit

The design of the Master Unit fits in with the coffin design seen often in the series, which means like Take-Mikazuchi and Nu's coffin in Calamity Trigger, someone is probably inside it. Rachel says the world is based on "her" memory when referring to the Master Unit, which means the Master Unit is based on someone. Furthermore, Rachel is a Chrono Phantsama, a being pulled from her own time. Something happened that led to the world only being preserved by Rachel's memory. This explains why Rachel is so adamant about protecting the current world and why Amane is telling her not to get directly involved. It also fits in with the story she told Ragna about the girl endlessly rewriting a story with a set beginning and end.

Technically, the kanji used for describing Chronophantasma for Rachel and Celica aren't the same (for some reason they used the same katakana for each). Celica fits the "copy of soul from past time" definition with the kanji describing it as 居ない筈の者 ("the one that should not be here") , while Rachel follows its literal meaning - 刻の幻影 "the phantom of time". Also some other people speculated that it's the zeroth Prime Field Device that is writing said story.

Alternatively, the Master Unit is the Azure Shrine Maiden.

Rachel and Hades are both manifestations of her with one being the girl wanting to be saved and the other being the monster trying to killing herself alongside the whole world.

To elaborate, the first time the black beast struck she didn't simply drive it back, it was a grueling battle that ended with the creation of the units and special weapons such as Izayoi.

Clavis was the creator of the units which were ultimately used to drive the Black Beast back into the boundary whilist the Maiden was put into Amaterasu and thrown into the boundary to restore the world and keep it from ending again.

What happened is that over time the loneliness drove the girl insane and when humanity rediscovered the boundary and made an eye of the Azure, she decided to write her story and threw the world into a time loop.

Rachel was misteriously born into the Alucard family with no mother to speak of roughly at the same time Sechs got influenced by Izanami and Kagari manifested the powers of the black beast because those were the early drafts of the story.

By the time Ragna became the hero of the story, Amaterasu had rewritten stuff so much that Terumi winded up a villain sue made for the sole purpose of diverting the hate away from Izanami, Saya became a vessel just so that Ragna had strong emotions against killing her, Jin became Hakumen to keep Ragna's black beast at bay, Noel survived Ibukido's purge to serve as a proxy for Saya and become an eye which would be loved as a person instead of hated as a crazy android, Rachel would deploy Tsukuyomi like crazy to stop Izanami and even then so they still haven't prevented the apocalypse or saved the girl inside Amaterasu instead of just trying to kill Izanami and her.

Relius stuffed Ada's and his wife's souls into a Nox Nyctores in order to protect them.

So assuming the whole plan of the Big Bads was the one they wanted to do all along, that is using all the souls of the people in the world to create the "Embryo", it can also be assumed that Relius knew about the whole "Chosen people" still being around thing. This can mean that Relius put Ada and Nirvana and his wife into Ignis in order to protect them from the Imperator's literal soul grab (since he knew they were of no relevance to the Master Unit's memory). Relius claimed multiple times that it was simple to create a body out of seither, so he was possibly planning on turning them back to humans again. Combined with the oddly Heartwarming Gag ending, and that he himself outright stated his goals was different from the Imperator's (creating a world where things are not pre-determined is pretty noble considering it's coming from his mouth); his original characterization as a "mad puppeteer" who was only interested in experiments is somewhat questionable now.

(This theory was inspired by a forum post but I forgot where I read it so I'm afraid I cannot cite the source of the original author.)

Arakune will become a full-time monster in the next game

It will be revealed that the reason why he's got gibberish talk was because a nearly futile Battle in the Center of the Mind between the monster Arakune and Lotte Carmine. However, with the Embryo sucking out all Seithr except the 'Chosen Ones', it's very probable that the monster Arakune is the Chosen One, while Lotte is deemed unworthy, and so every essences of Lotte would be sucked into the Embryo and Arakune will be fully a monster, able to speak coherently but his mindset would be the literal consuming monster 24/7.

In Terumi's Arcade Mode ending, Hazama nonchalantly informs Terumi that the two have switched positions, and says that things aren't looking too good. Terumi may have been too busy freaking out that he was vulnerable to detect Hazama's sarcasm. Furthermore, Hazama is listed as MIA instead of dead after stabbing Trinity and falling into the lake.

CF comfirms this as Hazama, now separated from Terumi, has plans that don't involve reuniting with him.

We know that the events of the Remix Heart doujin, no matter how lulzy and reviled they are by many, are canon due to mentions of Mai and Taro in Chronophantasma. Kajun is shown to be a personal acquaintance and assistant of Koko's since the fourth chapter and is part of Makoto's circle of friends from her Academy days. Makoto was a double agent working for S7 while serving as a lieutenant in the NOL's Intelligence Department, and may have been installed in S7 before her tenure with the NOL. It's so logical a sequence of events, it'd be surprising if this wasn't canon.

In the next game, we may see the return of Hazama/Terumi

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Emphasis on "may." There's no telling how Hakumen outright obliterating our resident troll with Time Killer would affect the life link he established with Noel in Continuum Shift. After all, Nu fell into a Cauldron and then technically died a second time as Lambda but regenerated because Ragna was still alive, so who knows? There's also the fact that Hazama keeps his cool when separated from Terumi, whereas Terumi is having a major malfunction, implying that (as stated above) the Hazama personality had some plans of his own.

My own opinion: Hazama might come back, but Terumi definitely won't. And I believe Time Killer would bypass such a thing like Life Link.

There is a shop in Ikaruga that sells replicas, or even real versions, of Ragna's coat and Blood Scythe.

Ragna comes back from the past, he's missing his coat and sword. By the time he gets back to Kagura's place, he has both. Who says the scenes took place immediately after the other? Plus, Kagura rules Ikaruga so he might not care if a shop celebrates a rebel/thinks it might help foster rebellion against the NOL's iron-fisted rule. Plus, if NOL fugitives like Ragna, Noel, and Jin can walk around freely, the local NOL force is too weak/doesn't care, either.

The way how the story mode in Phantasma has grown to be rather divisive compared to it predecessor for various reasons. (The mode has become more streamlined, certain new characters didn't have that big of a role, etc.) So this would be a good time for Arc System Works to do some damage control here. And the potential new Gag Reels could also be used as the game's Self-Deprecation regarding some of the problems people had with the story mode and/or be used to try to answer a few other questions fans had about the game even if for more comical purposes. (Like why was Bullet the next victim of Litchi's "Cosplay Fetish"? Simple they were going to let Litchi play around with Makoto like that but unlike the previous two girls Makoto liked it in fact she liked it a little too much in which they couldn't show the results while still maintaining that T rating.) But still all joking aside there is a good chance that CP will get reversions with additional story mode content and said reversions might not be exclusive to the PlayStation 3 unlike the original.

CP is now getting its own Extend. Yes, it'll be released in PS4 and Xbox One as well. It comes with additional characters (Celica and Lambda-11) and thus, new Arcade story. And Kokonoe, Kagura and Bullet get their own story mode, too. No news on the gag reels though.

Carl Clover's role in the storyline is not finished yet in fact its quite possibly far from finished.

While Carl did not get a bigger role in Phantasma it seems like he and Litchi and free now and that Relius has been defeated however that might not be the end of Carl's role in the story. Fortunately this doesn't necessarily mean that a Diabolus ex Machina will come in that will aid Relius and screw over Carl but still even if Carl still doesn't get a bigger role there is a good chance its not finished yet. Besides there are still certain questions that have yet to been answered like for example what is the real reason why Amane was so interested in Carl.

In the end of the third game, Carl essentially leads his own faction with Litchi and Relius in tow, so what you said might be close to becoming true.

In the next game Relius will get a new doll.

Given that Carl will restore Ada, I think that he will end up using Ignis while Relius makes a run with another Detonator when shit inevitably goes south in the next game.

Answer: he's still interested with Makoto of the current timeline. And if what you imply is Relius making a doll from Wheel of Fortune Makoto, then... how could it possibly happen anyway?

Azrael is the Sebastian Shaw of Blazblue

He absorbs the attacks he receives, that's because apparently nothing works on him. The tatoo seals are probably to store this energy and liberate it when he wants to use it.

The tattoos are his Power Limiter. And he doesn't absorb all attacks, only projectile ones.

Killing Rachel wouldn't do anything to Ragna

And will instead do something to Izanami. Rachel only told Tsubaki that counting on the idea that if it does come down to using Immortal Breaker on her that Tsubaki won't hesitate to do so out of her desire for revenge.

Confirmed, mostly. Central Fiction's final cutscene shows the new timeline after Ragna essentially ceases to exist, having replaced Noel as the core of the Master Unit, and we're treated to what the lives of the characters are like now. For starters, the NOL is no longer corrupt, and Homura is the Imperator, with Kagura and Jin as his right hand men. Tsubaki and Noel are back with the NOL as well (presumably in the same field Noel was, since they sport blue outfits), but Noel has [3] along with Lambda and Nu. Bullet and Tager are reunited and seemingly work together, with Bullet possibly joining Sector 7, and Azrael is sealed for good and constantly monitored by Kokonoe. Taokaka has returned to the Kaka village and proceeds to get glomped by kittens, and visited by Torakaka as well. Litchi has returned to Orient Town and reunited with Linhua, with Mai, Kajun, and Platinum in tow, with Jubei watching from afar. Bang stands before a ruined Ikaruga with his legion of men, and rallies them into rebuilding Ikaruga to its former glory, which is later visited by Amane and his troupe. Naoto and Raquel are seen having a comical moment, so it's implied they got their happy ending too. On the opposite side, Carl is seen turning away from something, his glasses bearing an eyepatch reminiscent of Relius' mask, and Valkenhayn is seen pouring tea in preperation for Rachel's return, with Nago and Gii looking troubled. We last see Rachel standing before a grave made for Ragna with his sword beside it, and she's approached by someone wielding Okami, which is implied to be Tsubaki, who has possibly inherited the Susano'o Unit. The fates of Arakune and Nine are left unknown.

Ragna will be able to control and use the power of the Black Beast

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Jin Kisaragi is essentially a grown-up version Bridget appearance-wise

Given that both are exceptionally pretty-looking, are British, have the same hair and eye color, and even wear similarly-looking outfits (tights and what resembles a blue and white dress), it's little wonder that Jin would pretty much resemble like a grown-up version of Bridget if the latter decided to become a Butch Lesbian since he wasraised as a girl.

Bloodedge Experience

Our hero is Naoto Kurogane real name Naoto Terumi. His sister is Saya. Given Naoto is a clear expy of Ragna and has the same surname as Yuuki, and by extension Hazama, it opens the faint possibility that Ragna The Bloodedge and Yuuki Terumi are related, the former as Naoto's descendant, the latter as Saya's.

As amazing as that would have been, it turns out Naoto is Ragna's Alternate Self rather than his ancestor.

The true Azure is in the format of an hourglass

In the arcade opening of Chrono Phantasma, we can see a blue hourglass. There are no further references to hourglasses in the game itself but, at the end of it, the time of the world is said to be "limited". Maybe the Azure is the clock of the apocalypse, counting every second until the world ends? This could also explain Arakune's decay, if he is decaying as fast as the world.

Izanami will make certain characters her "heralds"

If the goddess of death truly desires death for all of the world, she can't keep this "chosen ones" alive and must kill them. Saya's body don't seem to have any combat capacities, and even if have it's only one individual, so she will turn certain characters in her heralds so she can kill the rest more easily.

I expect some if not all the heralds being the souls of people already dead including Platinum/Trinity, the XBlaze cast, Tenjo, etc. Terumi might be the lone exception due to both Izanami not seeing further use for him and his death by Time Eater

As the world is reeling from the slow loss of seithr (thanks to the Kushinada Lynchpin), people (or at least the playable characters) will try finding a way to wield true magic. And since one of the villains is the true magic-wielding Phantom who also happens to be Nine, one of Ishana's best, our characters will find a way to stop her, likely in Ishana. Also it is mentioned that Ishana was the safe haven on Earth during the Black Beast's rampage in the Dark War; as Ragna becomes something of a Black Beast apparition, Ishana will be important once again as a place of refuge.

Someone named Izanagi created the Sankishin Units

It fits well with the original Japanese myth, where Izanagi becomes the father of Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi and Susanoo. His existence hasn't been alluded to, though, aside from apparently being the name of a city and, well, the existence of Izanami (in the myth it's Izanagi's wife). And if he exists, he'll damn well be an important character.

Unlikely. In the true ending of CP Izanami said that humanity created the Izanagi (what the Izanagi is we have no idea). Considering the Sankishin have existed since the creation of the universe (the world is Amaterasu’s dream constructed from her memories) it is impossible for Izanagi to have created them.

New playable characters in the fourth game

Jubei: He's pretty much the most asked and expected to be playable since Kokonoe's inclusion. Also he has been knocked down numerous times, prominently one time in CS and then another in CP, coincidentally both by Phantom, so he'll be "normal" like Hakumen. Most importantly, since Phantom is revealed to be Nine, his supposedly dead lover, it's likely he'll take a more active role this time, trying to bring her back to her senses. During the fight he'll utilize his claws like the Kaka clan, but in addition, he'll have his Musashi on his mouth and tails. No idea on his drive yet, though.

Central Fiction verified.

Phantom: Because of the aforementioned Phantom = Nine skit and the fact that Izanami "loosens" her control of Phantom, she'll gain prominence and be playable. She'll be a powerful magic user for sure, and likely a tough opponent.

Central Fiction Jossed. Nine, however, is playable.

"Berserk" Ragna: similarly to Phantom, he's pretty much going to be the focus of our heroes (mainly Jin, Noel and Tsubaki) so it's likely that he'll be playable. Normal Ragna may also be playable, but it's a 50/50 chance. Fighting style is likely to be an improved version of normal Ragna's. Likely to be DLC.

Makoto's Super Mode: Optional; just as her besties Noel and Tsubaki have got theirs, it'd be awesome if Makoto gets one too, but there's nothing on her to justify the need for it (yet).

Hibiki Kohaku: Optional; at least Arc-sys might be pulling a Valkenhayn again and make Kagura's butler playable. At the very least, he's a captain in the NOL, which hints at his latent badassery.

Dummied Out quotes in Chronophantasma Extend suggest they wanted to add him in for whatever reason. Probably gonna happen next time. Central Fiction verified.

Mai Natsume: The abridged Remix Heart story in CP Extend is highly likely used as a tease for her appearance later. She was also mentioned to go missing after her graduation.

Central Fiction verified.

A random XBlaze character: As the ending of the third game mentioned the Embryo as Izanami's latest instrument, XBlaze elements would likely play some important role in the fourth game, and a character from there will be represented.

Central Fiction verified via Es.

Some more Duodecim representatives: Optional; as Kagura mentioned, not all of the Duodecim are supporting Homura as the new Imperator, so there's likely to be a feud between them, and it'll be represented through playable characters from their group.

Nine: The last of the Six Heroes to be playable, just to complete them. She'll be a DLC character and be even more broken than her daughter. Story-wise she'll be saved from her predicaments as Phantom.

Central Fiction verified.

Hades Izanami: Optional; if she isn't going to be a non-playable Final Boss instead, she may become playable. Then again she's using Saya as her vessel, and Saya might try to reject her from within and at least someone might try to help her from the outside.

Central Fiction verified.

The fourth game will involve an all-out war

And for good measure, it'll be called "the Third War of Ars Magus". At least Amane foreshadowed it, in that he wanted to "dance on the greatest stage" - that is, a battlefield where the greatest of warriors gather.

A “Third War of Ars Magus” seems difficult since most of the seithr in the world has been negated by Kushinada’s Lynchpin and a large portion of humanity has been absorbed into the Embryo. Only those who are “chosen” can still wield Ars Magus so a full scale war seems impossible.

Central Fiction is a Reality Warper artifact that create clones of people with all of their memories.

That's how Naoto, Hazama, Terumi, Platinum and maybe even Azrael are in the game.
The recurrent mirror theme in the trailer also would suggest this, if the clones are more like "reflections" of these people.

Most likely jossed based on Nine’s speech at the end of the trailer. She says that the Central Fiction is the unchanging truth upon which the world is based. It cannot be an artifact, and it is unlikely to be necessary to create a method of bringing in characters when the only character that is hard to bring back is Terumi (Platinum and Hazama are not confirmed dead and there are already multiple ways of bringing someone from the past).

Ragna's coat and Blood Scythe

Ragna recieved both the jacket and the sword from Jubei. Chronophantasma and Phase 0 reveal that the original Bloodedge(Ragna himself) gave them both to Celica A Mercury to look after while he picks a fight with the Black Beast. Chronophantasma!Ragna may have taken Calamity Trigger!Ragna's version of the equipment while he was in the Black Beast, while the one he gave to Celica went to himself in the future. Considering that Ragna went back to the present with both items, this is a paradox as they have no set origin.

Rachel will give Litchi the Tsukuyomi Unit

In the trailer of CF, at one moment you can see Litchi looking at something with Rachel's sigil projected on the air. I think that is the Unit and Rachel is giving it to Litchi to PassTheTorch, since she expects Tsubaki to kill her.

It's basically sparks or exposed electrical power arcing all over the place. At this stage she's been junked, rebuilt from donor parts, stabbed, sacrificed her Idea Engine, cannibalized for parts, and then rebuilt from spare parts considered decayed enough to get passed over the first time. She's held together by chewing gum, lollipop sticks, and the will of the almighty at this point, so whatever reactor she has is constantly shedding radiation through her dodgy machinery.

Jin's new Astral Heat

To show that he is slowly becoming as strong as Hakumen, in some point in the next game(s), Jin's Astral Rengoku Hyoya will change to so when the ice from Yukianesa ensnares and entraps the opponent, the ice completely freezes the enemy, causing Jin will slash the screen in the same manner as Hakumen, shattering the ice and the opponent as well.

Ragna's reputation in the first game is inflated by the NOL higher ups to hide their activities

He's infamous in the first game for wiping out entire braches of NOL and yet his in game behavior (and relucance to fight non-NOL people) contrast with that. What is more likely is those deaths were due to whatever experiments were going on there, possibly triggered by Ragna's attacks. It's supported by what happens in CS when Hazuma activates the new cauldron and every NOL member there ends up losing their soul. It wouldn't be too unusual for such deaths to be blamed on Ragna who would seemingly justify it with his attacks.

Jubei may perform a Face/Neutral turn.

Now we know that Nine is an active character, and is gunning for Master Unit Amateratsu, Jubei will be presented with a conflict of interest or crisis of conscience of sorts; does he support Blazblue's version of God, who isn't doing a very good job, or his wife, who is on a Revenge Before Reason fueled rampage? If he chooses the former, he'll have little choice but to kill his wife, and in doing so further alienate himself from their daughter. And he he chooses the latter, how will he handle the inevitable fact that he'll have to go through closest friend Hakumen and possibly Rachel to do it?

Relius turned Ada and Ignis into dolls because they were Dead All Along.

Ada could have possibly died before she was turned into Nirvana. Filled with grief, Relius tried to save her by putting her in Nirvana, but he gave up and let Carl finish the job. The same thing would later happen to Ignis, and using what he learned from Nirvana, he would succeed in bringing Ignis back, but as a lifeless doll. The despair from losing them was so great, he begins to see people as souls, hence his sociopathy. It also ends up alienating him from Carl, who would eventually seek him out and demand answers.

Ada and Ignis were willing participants in Relius' experiments.

Relius tells Carl that Ada was a willing subject; Carl doesn't believe it and it's easy to write it off as Relius taunting Carl, but Relius is adamant about always speaking the truth. Thus far, despite all the horrific things he's done or helped bring about, we haven't seen anything to the contrary. Ada willingly underwent the procedure, though why she did so is up in the air: Given her relationship with Carl, maybe she thought it would benefit him in some way. Perhaps she was in poor health and saw it as a way to stay around for her little brother, or maybe Relius told her about the chaos to come and Ada wanted the strength to protect Carl as Nirvana. Ignis may have similarly agreed to protect her family or her husband, or simply out of love for Relius; or, depending on how much of the human woman you think remains in post-procedure Ignis, she may have been so anguished over what happened to her daughter (and how her son would react to it) that she agreed to undergo the procedure in order to forget those memories or be free of the pain it caused her.

The whole world of Blazblue is one massive case of an in-universe Self-Insert Fic.

That the one who is the self insert is the master unit Amaterasu with Noel being its character. This would explain the 30-Sue Pileup due to them being meant to be sloppily written but their own personalities and goals end up conflicting with the original writers idea leading to all the conflicts in the series. That is also why Izanami is a Generic Doomsday Villain, both since her writer couldn't come up with anything better and that the writer simply wants to wipe the slate clean now that everything is going against it's wishes. This is also what the title Central Fiction refers to and the truth that drove Nine and maybe even Terumi insane.

This might be true, as of Central Fiction, Noel Vermillion is revealed to be the girl sleeping inside the Amaterasu Unit, and the world is based on her memories and dreams.

Ignis will turn against Relius at some point.

Maybe at one point, Relius defeats Carl again and orders Ignis to finish him off for good. However, with Ignis' soul inside the doll, she can't bring herself to kill her own child, and attacks Relius out of rage.

Noel Vermillion becomes like what Shinji Ikari was during End of Evangelion.

With the reveal that Izanami is the physical manifestation of "the girl-in-the-Amaterasu Unit's Drive", and that being is heavily implied to be Noel Vermillion, and that there are heavy implications that she may have actually accomplished her desire for a "world of death"[note]the secret Judgment Day stage is implied to take place outside of the Embryo, and it shows that the world has become a hellscape[/note], it could very well be that Izanami is actually enforcing that being's goal of I Just Want to Be Normal, albeit taken to the extremes with a desolate world being made, just like what Shinji did in End of Evangelion.

This begs the question of why Izanami want Noel to die, though.

Gag Reels for Central Fiction

We will see one where Kokonoe turns Tager into a giant robot again, and one where Litchi gets a new cosplay victim, from one of the new female playable characters in the game because that's how it was in the last two games. Those happen Once an Episode.

Gag Reels were present, but none of those were present. We do see a return of Magical Girl Platinum versus the evil Boing Queen, a return to Brotherly Paradise, the finale of the Spectacles of Eros, and Naoto Kurogane starring in a dating sim.

The true nature of Noel and Mu in CF (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Mu is the Noel we know from since the first game while the current Noel is the girl in Amaterasu taking on Noel's memories and form

This is hinted at in Noel's Act 3 arcade where, in a flashback she (in Mu form) is inside the Black Beast and sees a vision of something she shouldn't see, which makes her split off with "that girl" (presumably Mu) to protect "that person" (presumably whatever being the Amaterasu's occupier was). Also the apparent desire of her being a normal girl is never hinted at in the previous games, especially since in CP Noel seems to be cool with what she is. Then there's how Mu still remembers things from the previous games while Noel doesn't. The vision that Izanami shows Noel in her Act 2 might refer to the girl in Amaterasu being "nailed" into the unit and being blamed for everyone's problems. Also Izanami (in Mu's Act 3) wanting Noel to be put back into "her coffin" and calling her the Original Prime Field, as well as in Rachel's arcade where it's said that the Amaterasu Unit is currently empty.

Would you believe me if I said it's actually more complicated than that?

Relius started his family solely to advance his plans.

Relius fell into the Cauldron eighty years ago and, as of CT/CS, has been in the "present" for about twenty years. Ada appears to be in her teens in Carl's flashbacks, so twenty years should be enough time before Relius (attempts) to turn Ada into Nirvana. Since his experiments with the Boundary and the Soul apparently had a negative effect on Relius' ability to view people as people instead of things, it's not out of the question that his fall through the Boundary would have completed any moral transformation so that starting a family just to continue his work wouldn't be out of the question. Knowing he'd need the right souls to re-create Nirvana and complete his Detonator, he created the raw materials: Makoto's CSE Bad End states that Relius needs a fulcrum, basically leverage over a soul, to shape it properly. This seems to boil down to an emotional bond with another that can be exploited, which the bonds of family would easily provide: Ada's fulcrum was her bond with Carl and Ignis' fulcrum was likely her feelings for Relius himself.

Related to the above, that's part of why Relius left Ada/Nirvana half-finished.

Ada's connection to Carl, while allowing Relius to shape her soul and implant it in Nirvana, might have also made it difficult for Relius to command Nirvana as perfectly, something he realized partway through the process and didn't (at the moment) have the means to correct. Relius then went on to complete Detenator Ignis, but as a scientist he's always ready to gather new data and Ada's bond with Carl provided the opportunity to do so, leading Relius to intentionally leave Nirvana half-restored and surrounded by tools instead of scrapping her or reusing her parts. Relius has said that he's impressed with what Carl's done with Nirvana and implied that he might have been expecting Carl to fix her and "save" Ada, or at least try to do so; Relius can now not only refine his knowledge through direct experience with Ignis but can observe how different circumstances might affect the performance of a similar Puppeteer/Doll partnership by observing Carl and Nirvana.

Post-Central Fiction Hazama winds up in Naoto's world.

We know that the Naoto in CF came from a different world, not just a different time, and that Naoto met Hazama prior to winding up in the Embryo. Crossing the Boundary can allow travel through Time and Space: When Hazama jumped into the Cauldron, he emerged into Naoto's world well before Naoto left for Central Fiction. This may be how he makes his appearance in Bloodedge Experience: "Hazama" was created by Relius during the Dark War, but BE predates that. When Hazama shows up in BE he introduces himself as Hazama and neither Relius nor Valkenhayn, who's also present, knows who he is, while Hazama already knows Relius and has been looking for him. Note that at the end of CF, before Relius departs via Cauldron, Hazama says that he hopes they can work together again.

Terumi purposefully left the Susanoo Unit so humans could discover it

From CF, when humanity discovered the Susanoo Unit, they figured out the connection between it and "some unit high above". From there, humanity then tried to dip a Prime Field Device to contact said unit, and they were successful... but said device not just gained power of the Eye, she also gained sentience. Humanity then locked the PFD in the boundary out of fear of her power. Then a long series of events birthed from it: the Prime Field War, the destruction of the original world and The Origin (the very PFD they locked in, now being the Master Unit's occupant) recreating it, and later she went to reset the world over and over because her "beloved hero" cannot come to her, which led to all of the world's current problems. And then it's revealed that Terumi IS Susanoo, or rather its original will, who hated Amaterasu with a passion and strove to destroy all of her creations and make her life miserable. Put the two together and it seems more likely that Terumi intentionally left the unit for a long, long plan of making his "sister" suffer and then top her off by gaining the True Blazblue.

Relius retreated to the Boundary to avoid being affected by the recreated universe.

The Boundary is outside of the physical universe, which by CF is basically the Embryo due to the collapse of all alternate worlds. As we see at the end of CF, everyone in the Embryo was affected by Ragna's reformatting of the world, which presumably extends to everyone else; I'm assuming the random civilians don't remember that time they were reduced to pure Seithr. Having spent most of the game watching everything happen, Relius figured out which way the wind was blowing, realized his original plan wasn't feasible and decided to shift gears: If he's not going to be remaking the world, he might as well observe what happens when someone else does. Remaining in-world ran the risk of being affected by whatever changes were made, so Relius removed himself from the world. The Boundary, existing outside of Time and Space proper, would remain unaffected by the recreation of the physical realities; similarly, anyone inside the Boundary at the time (and thus outside of the World) would be unaffected as well. Relius, assuming he survived, likely retained all of his pre-Ragna-the-Master-Unit memories as a result.

The origin of Taokaka's attack names...

So, while characters like Ragna, Litchi, Carl, etc. all have a specific nomenclature to them, Taokakas are more like statements rather than names. The biggest one that stands out is "Imma beat the crap out of you!" for one of her Distorion Drives, but here are some theories about the others.

The ones related to cats (Cat Spirit One through Three and Sticky Kitty) were probably imagined up by someone like Ragna or Litchi, seeing as those are her most cat-like actions. They were named as such because they carry the spirit of a cat the most. All of her "Edge" moves, such as her Drive and whatnot, I'd imagine are because she probably got those names from "Rawrgnya the Bloodedge", and probably thought that adding "Edge" to her move names sounded powerful. Her Astral's name sounds more like a command she's giving to other Kaka kittens, and finally, there's "Cat Person's Secret Art: Hexa-Edge". That move is probably something she either learned or inherited through Jubei (AKA "cat person"). This leads to my next WMG...

Ideas on Jubei's gameplay...

Jubei would probably be an Expy of Marvel vs. Capcom's Wolverine, a short-stanced, quick, slashy fighter. His Musashi would probably be his Drive in some way, and I could see it going two ways:

1. To act as a Foil not only his arch-nemesis, but also his earliest student, what if Jubei had a large amount of weak Distorion Drives like Terumi, but because he was able to steal Heat kind of like Ragna's lifesteal? Alternatively...

2. Much like his more recent student, Jubei could have a series of Musashi attacks that cost 25 Heat to perform, much like Jin. The catch? These attacks are unblockable, because as he puts it, Musashi "can cut things you can't normally cut."

That, and as stated by the above WMG, Jubei would probably have his Hexa-Edge somewhere in his movepool.

After the end of Central Fiction, Carl is investigating Cauldrons because...

... he's trying to separate "Ada" from "Nirvana." Near the end of his Act 3 it seems like Carl's begun to differentiate between his sister and his weapon; given that he adores Ada but Ada/Nirvana showed signs of disobeying him, Carl is looking for a way to grant Ada, who always cared for him, a body separate from that of Nirvana, his rebellious tool. Relius might have been able to smelt Nox Nyctores-grade weapons (and higher, if we believe what he says about the Detonators) without a Cauldron, but Carl needs an active one if he stands any chance of replicating/undoing Relius' experiments.

... he's looking for his father. Carl found out or guessed that Relius left the Embryo by entering the Boundary; he still has a score to settle with his Archnemesis Dad and may still be intent on mining Relius' knowledge to save/recreate Ada. Cauldrons are Gates into the Boundary, so Carl is either planning on finding some way to pull Relius out or plans on entering the Boundary himself. Of course, we don't even know if Relius is still alive...

... he's trying to find a world where Ada lives. Carl now knows that Ada was always going to become Nirvana in his current timeline, but, with the Embryo no longer collapsing all other worlds, there's the possibility that other options exist and may be accessible through the Boundary. Depending on how far Carl's jumped off the slippery slope, he's either looking for another Ada to "adopt" or is planning on harvesting her to restore "his" Ada, similar to how Relius used Ada's body/soul to remake Nirvana.

We'll be getting more Bloodedge Experience, though possibly under another name.

Mori tweeted a sketch [4] of Bloodedge Experience-era Relius and Valkenhayn along with Mai's CF confirmation, saying [5] that he'd like to do something focused on 'these two.' The conclusion of Ragna's story makes it a good time to give the spotlight to other characters; the fact that both Relius and Valkenhayn are (as far as we know) alive by the end of CF, which also drops more background about why they've got a VS. theme in the first place, means that any works focused on their past could easily be connected to the main games' "present" and the resolution of the Relius/Carl storyline.

Carl won't turn out like his father, but that's not really a good thing.

Relius considers human emotion to be a weakness, a flaw in the raw material of a soul. Carl always argued against this but his argument changes in Central Fiction, when he contends that emotions can make a soul stronger. This isn't idealistic: Carl's saying that strong emotions can make a soul more useful for the experiments he hopes to perform. Relius would never have considered the possibility but Carl won't be so quick to disregard its value, which may give him far more to work with than Relius' stringent standards allowed. Perhaps harnessing the emotions of a human soul will allow Carl to finally surpass his father?

Does that mean he's going to be the next character to harness The Power of Hate? Is going to deliberately make subjects despair in order to increase their usefulness? If the series continues, Carl could end up as a new villain.

Relius' experiments didn't turn him into The Sociopath; he was always like that.

Current theory says that Relius' soul-experiments wore away at his empathy or otherwise caused him to see people as things, based largely on the fact that he was an apparently normal Nice Guy in the Bloodedge Experience novels. However, it seems as though Relius either always had the ability to see souls or acquired that ability sometime before Bloodedge Experience since he's already wearing a blindfold-type mask and his masks seem related to his altered vision, which the games confirm allow him to see souls. If the ability to see souls at the expense of individual humans was what eroded his empathy, it's likely Relius was pretty far into sociopathy by the time of Bloodedge Experience and was just doing a good job of hiding it a laDexter or Kotomine Kirei. Meeting Terumi, who likely encouraged Relius' amorality so Relius could help with Terumi's own goals, was akin to Kotomine meeting Gilgamesh in Fate/Zero: It didn't cause or lead to Relius' lack of empathy, it just served as the catalyst for Relius deciding to embrace the part of himself which he'd previously hidden.

What's Next For Blazblue?

All the below assumes they even bother to continue with the franchise, which isn't a given.

We already know about the stinger alluding to Alpha no-1 and Bloodscythe being missing, and concept art already exists of what she looks like; a genderswapped Ragna by all indications, including Bloodscythe. So we can make a pretty good guess where that's got to. Chances are good she'll be the new Big Bad, with Relius, Carl and maybe even Hazama also getting involved. And the expansion of the mythos pre Dark War, especially the Prime Field Device War and the first Black Beast gives room to flesh out her motivations. Maybe there's even room for Ragna to jump in as an 11th-Hour Ranger cameo....

It's common knowledge that the franchise was originally intended as a RPG. Sister series Guilty Gear experimented with that format, so the time is ripe to have another go and perhaps we'll see what they originally intended the series to be like.

Alternatively, instead of the new Big Bad, Alpha will be the new central protagonist (having Soul Eater functionally makes her another Bloodedge anyway), inheriting Ragna's legacy.

Ragna's birth father was Relius.

We at least know that when Jubei found Ragna, Jin, and Saya/Noel as children, he stated that they were going to be experimented on. In the first few chapters of Central Fiction's story, we learn two things; 1. Jin's earliest memory is being huddled in the corner of a grey room with his brother and sister. 2. the above fact about what Jubei said. At first my guess was going to go to Shuichiro being Ragna's father, making him a Mercury, but Shuichiro and his children are not blonde or have green eyes. However, the Clover family is blonde, and while Carl and Ignis have blue eyes (though the latter could be an augmentation), we're not sure what color eyes Ada and Relius have. That, and it's possible that Ragna and his siblings, while born of Relius, might have been born of a different mother than Ignis, who could've been made into a doll like Ignis was, or left Relius for some other reason.

So, for all we know, Ragna, Jin, and Saya could've been Clovers at birth.

We do know that there were several Detonator prototypes before Ada/Nirvana and Ignis, all of which Relius likely discarded once they didn't perform to expectations; it's possible that one of these prototypes bore Ragna and his siblings before being converted and abandoned. That leads to the unsavory possibility that Relius had multiple families, likely to get a pre-made fulcrum (required to use a soul in a Detonator), each of which was subsequently discarded a laEgo when they didn't serve their purpose.

Relius did create the Murakumos, so in a sense they're Carl and Ada's siblings. And Noel is Ragna and Jin's sister... In some left-handed logic readings, this might actually be possible.

For extra Big, Screwed-Up Family fun, if Celica had actually be an adoptive mother to Ragna, Jin and Saya instead of a custodian, that would have made Nine their (and the Clover kids') aunt. And Kokonoe their cousin, and Jubei their uncle. If this had been the case, Relius would be Nine's... sibling once removed. Yipes.

Well he wasOne of the Ten Sages. And yes, that capitalization is not a mistake.

The origin of "Pakumen" and "Terumen"...

The Susano'o unit is the body of a creature capable of reproduction, and Pakumen and Terumen are baby Susano'o creatures. When a new Susano'o Unit is born, it begins its life as a Pakumen-like creature. They eventually grow to have more human-like bodies (a la Hakumen), but further up the evolutionary cycle they become more monstrous and gain teeth, and their shoulders evolve into two extra head-like structures (a la Takehaya Susano'o). So in the Susano'o unit life cycle, Pakumen and Terumen are babies/infants, Hakumen is a young adult, and Susano'o is fully grown. Now this image◊ makes so much more SENSE!

Lord Tenjo is "playable" in Central Fiction...

...as Izanami, sort of. It's confirmed in the light novel Spiral Shift that Tenjo is, in fact, a purple-haired, red-eyed woman, who's stated to wear a large cloak and mask to protect her weak body from seithr. It also turns out that Tenjo was the current Imperator of the NOL at the time, and her child, Homura, is next in line to take the throne. Here's where it gets weird, though; Tenjo has a unique ability to transfer her soul to a new vessel, which she eventually does this by hopping her soul into what would later become Bang's Nox Nyctores; the Phoenix: Rettenjo. At the time, however, she was already occupying a vessel which, as she told Jin, was "something that consumes death," and a "'puppet' that will give birth to 'death'." Jin even comments she looks exactly like Saya before Tenjo eventually died. And sure enough, after her death, her body is collected by none other than Yuuki Terumi.

So this could either mean one of two things; Tenjo is a Saya clone, or Izanami's soul is currently occupying Tenjo's former vessel.

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